


there is meaning as long as there is someone to need it

by persephassax



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Child Soldiers, Drinking, F/M, Finn-centric, M/M, Multi, OT3, Original Character Death(s), Slow Build, War, queer interracial polyamorous space romance, space curry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephassax/pseuds/persephassax
Summary: The Galaxy is vast and dark, and the future is defined by uncertainty. A man who couldn't find a way to keep his feet on the ground finds himself tamed and tethered by a sleeping body in the Resistance infirmary. On a planet unmarked on any star chart a woman proves herself to a long lost old man.





	there is meaning as long as there is someone to need it

**Author's Note:**

> Set directly after the Force Awakens, this is a labor of love that I have been working on for two years. My thanks go out to all my IRL friends who held my hand through the last 3 months of this process as I tried to finish this before The Last Jedi hit theaters. Especially to E., who let me send him clips while we were both at work, to J. who let me bitch about how Star Wars world building, politics, and economics make no sense, to S. who has always made me strive to write more, better, and who I hope finds this up to snuff. And to F. who is my fandom partner in crime and does nothing but encourage my bad ideas. 
> 
> All titles come from A Softer World.

**i. a fire without a spark**

Finn wakes up alone. There is the quiet beeping of the machines he’s hooked up to, and for a moment, between consciousness and awareness, he thinks he’s back on the First Order starship, surrounded by bodies, breathing bodies, and that he’s going to dress in white armor, answer to letters and numbers, and kill because that was how he was made. 

But when the room comes into focus, it’s the infirmary of the Resistance. The machines are meant to monitor his life signs, and he is alone. 

The relief he expected to feel at not being on a starship fails to materialize. He is alone. The machines start beeping, noise faster and faster and he knows that it’s him, that he’s doing something—something is happening, but he can’t think, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or where he is, exactly. He doesn’t know if the Starkiller is destroyed. He doesn't know— he doesn’t— he doesn’t—

A woman materializes at the edge of his vision and for a moment he think maybe it's Rey, but no, she’s older. Her hands are out, reaching toward him, and one makes contact with his shoulder, and he wants to shake it off, but he’s too tense, he can’t move away. The beeping of the machines fades a bit and suddenly he can hear something, a sound, and it’s her voice, her mouth is moving, “Breathe, Finn. Listen to my voice, you’re alright, take a breath, in– and out– in– and out– that’s it, Finn, that’s it–” 

Her voice is calm, she's calm, and he tries to match his breathing, his panicked gasps, to the cadence of her voice, and the world fades in a little around the edges. 

His breathing finally calms, enough, and he can feel exhaustion pulling him down, and away, and he grabs the woman’s hand, “Rey,” but she might be anywhere, she might not even be alive, but the thought makes him want to choke, again, and he thinks of dark hair and a bright laugh and strong hands on him, kind, for the first time, _Poe_ , and he falls back into darkness.

* * *

Poe Dameron is the greatest pilot the Resistance has ever known. The captain of the squadron, he has led swarms of fighter ships into battle with his own fearless example. Battles have been won on the strength of his will, the edge of his daring, and the sacrifices he carries on his conscience. One day, the war will be won on those same lines.

But a week, two weeks, three weeks, longer, of silence and stillness from the body in the infirmary, nothing but quiet beeps from machines, letting him know that it's just stillness, pause, and not finality, not death, have worn him thin. 

Poe Dameron is a man of action, he is not made for patience. 

At first they rested, because the Starkiller had taken so many lives. The seat of the Republic destroyed, the pilots shot down by First Order weapons– It took weeks to bury the dead, and weeks to mourn those obliterated, scattered, unburiable. Since then, the General has tried her best to keep him busy.

He cannot help but drift. He is kept in orbit with the infirmary–the still body in the infirmary–as its apex. The silence in the room is the gravity well at the edge of a black hole. The stillness is the unimaginable weight, the point where space and time fold in on themselves until they disappear, and the hole–the hole left behind–wants to pull him in, too.

Finn, his face young and smooth in his sleep, had not asked for this war. Stormtroopers were not recruited, and this boy, made over for war, wanted nothing more than to escape it, and placed his desperate bet on Poe. He was a boy, no matter that his spirit, his actions, had proven that he was a man. He was so young, and he carried with pride a name that Poe had given him, letting it settle, regal, on his shoulders. 

Poe sits in the infirmary, in the morning, before he is called to meet with the General. At midday, when the sun is too hot, and the Resistance retreats indoors, the beeps and hush of the infirmary press in on his eardrums, and he fills it with stories of past battles, details of strategy, and if requests for some stirring, some sign of life, accompanied by a hollow laugh, ever escape his lips, no one else is there to know. In the evening–sometimes the afternoon, if the pull is too strong–he cleans the grease off his fingers at Finn’s bedside, or tinkers with the pieces of this ship or that ship that need tuning. The others of the squadron watch him as he makes his way back to the infirmary, their gazes sucking at his heels, trying to hold him back, but his orbit is set. He must return. 

He is thinking of the General’s plan, the way her eyes were sad and heavy with loss, the weight of all the dead pulling her shoulders down. His eyes focus on the engine in front of him, the clanking of his tools ringing through the body of the ship, covering the noise of the people outside, talking and shouting for this tool or that. The General wants him to fly a reconnaissance mission out to the edges of the Galaxy. But the silence in the infirmary is still pulling him, making him reluctant to leave. He has to give her an answer and what is one silence versus another? Action or inaction, never before even a question, now pose a dilemma. 

There are some short, sharp shouts outside, and they materialize slowly, coming into range, “Poe! Poe Dameron! Poe!” And he ducks out from under the ship, and he is blinded by the sunlight, the dust outside clouding his vision, and he spots a blue robed figure running towards him.

The young man stops in front of him, gulping in air, and looks up, lips managing a grin around his gasps, and says, “He woke up. He asked for you.” 

And Poe’s orbit shifts, the gravity that works on him changed, and no longer a satellite, he is a meteor, a shooting star, and he is hurtling toward the infirmary before he is ever aware that he has moved.

* * *

Luke. The last Jedi.

They find him alone on the top of a mountain poking out of the sea, on a planet in a solar system no one has ever heard of, in a dark and foreign corner of the Galaxy. Rey knows that this is an important moment, perhaps _The Moment_ , after this nothing is ever going to be the same. But she knows about change. Change is a sharp desert wind, blowing the sand in your face as people are taken away. Change will leave you standing in the scorching heat, cold deep down in your bones where no sun or sand or wind can touch, waiting for something that is never going to come back. Luke Skywalker is just a man, swaddled in rough cloth, standing alone on the top of a mountain.  

Rey looks at him, and she knows that this man knows what change feels like, and she wonders if she looks anything like relief, like salvation, the way the memory of him looks to those who are waiting for him, to those who died to find him.

As she comes to the top of the mountain and he looks at her, Chewbacca still down below them on the cliff side, his face is hard, though his expression is soft. She wonders if he felt the change in the force, with the death of Han Solo, with the destruction of the Starkiller, with her own Force awakening. She does not know what the Force looks like, or feels like, and she wonders if he already knows who she is. 

“I’m Rey,” she tells him, after a moment of the sea sweet wind rushing between them, “I’m here to bring you home.”

For a moment, she thinks he will smile, that something in him is going to soften a little further, but instead he just nods and she turns to scramble back down the cliff side to the Millennium Falcon.

* * *

Finn doesn't so much wake up as realize that the quality of the darkness he is in is different. He can't hear very well, he feels heavy, his eyes are crusty and painful, and his eyelids are impossible to lift. But something is pulling him up, away from the warm dark of sleep he had come from.

Sleep has so long been a cold, clinical necessity–a reprieve, but not an escape. What sleep he managed while on the run with Rey (and something sharp and warm hits him at the thought of her) was restless. But this sleep, this sleep he has only just become aware of, is something he wants to acquaint himself with. 

But he is rushing toward the surface of himself nonetheless. Where he could only feel his eyes, he can feel his brow, his cheeks, the dry weight of his tongue in his mouth, the chapped skin of his lips. His head is heavy against a pillow, and the air is dry, recycled, as if he were on a ship, but the bed, his skin, where he can feel the stiff muscles in his shoulders and the nerveless feeling of his hands, don't echo with the hum of a spacecraft.  

He's confused by that. 

He's lived on space crafts all his life, if not one kind, then another. The hum of the engines, which runs through the walls and the floors, usually indistinguishable under the sound of boots and voices over the comms system, or the sound of his own breath in his helmet, would buzz him to sleep at night. The quiet of the barracks was full with the sound of a hundred bodies sleeping, but with his head on the pallet in his berth he could hear the constant hum of the engines, and would let it push out all the thoughts in his head, all the loneliness, the fear, the way some part of him, inside, turned over and hurt, a low constant pain, when he would remember that he had to get out of bed in the morning and go to drill. 

But there are voices, if he lets himself come further up, if he leaves confusion aside for curiosity, he can hear voices, not the shout of orders, or jibes at some nakedness or vulnerability as the barracks prepare in the morning, not the drone of the announcement detailing the assignments and reporting stations for barack FN-12, but someone sounds... Angry? Or scared? There's something distressed in the voice and the answering one is low, nearly out of the range of his hearing, but calm with some familiarity in its cadence.  
  
But suddenly distress stops being loud, and the same voice, comes close to him and if it didn't sound so sure, he might think it was pleading, but it's talking to him, and the nerveless feeling in his fingers is trying to tell him something, and there is something touching him, warm, and rough, and there are hands holding his hand, smoothing over it, and sending pins and needles shooting through his fingers and up his wrist. He tries to hold them in return, to let the warmth and the weight of them push life back into his hand, maybe into his whole body, and he can't do more than move the tips of his fingers, but the hands hold him tighter–big, strong hands, and he pushes up to try and break the surface of the darkness into the light that awaits him.

* * *

Poe reaches the infirmary covered in grease and dust. He pushes through the doors, to find the doctor waiting for him, and he doesn't even know what he wants to ask her, what to say. But she says, "Come with me," and leads him to the bed he knows so well.

When she pulls aside the curtain he knows she says something, but he can't hear her over the buzz in his head, which only gets louder when he sees, not what he was expecting, but the same thing he has seen for so many days and weeks now.   
Finn, skin dark against the light color of the sheets, eyes closed, body still.

Poe thinks his heart might stop.  


He rounds on the doctor, words flying out of his mouth, on automatic repeat, like the guns on his ship, "What the fuck are you playing at? They told me he woke up. Does this look like awake to you? No!"  

And the doctor doesn't raise her voice at all, doesn't blink, and he remembers that this is a woman healing the wounded of a war, and he wants to apologize, but he wants to tear her apart more. She says, "Captain Dameron, please restrain yourself. He woke up for approximately 10 minutes just this morning, he was in a panicked state, and when we calmed him down, he fell asleep."  


"You sedated him?!"  


"No," and her voice is like steel, but she softens for a moment, "Captain– Poe. He still has much healing to do. His body shut down in self-defense, limiting itself to preservation and some small effect of healing, but it was not a restful sleep." 

"He said my name?" Poe does not look too closely at how his voice is betraying his emotions, the fearless fighter pilot giving way to mere man.

"He was in distress, he asked about the young force user, after a fashion, then he said your name," her tone gets softer still, reaching into the brittle pieces inside him, "He sounded like he was looking for you."  


Poe turns back to the bed, and leans in close to Finn's head. He has stood at too many bedsides, holding too many friends. This war has taken so much from him, but he cannot bear to watch Finn be extinguished, a guttering flame like so many others. He has to believe that Finn is an ember, cooled, but not gone cold, waiting for the right wind to blow and make the flames of his life burn bright once more.  


"Hey, Finn," he says into the side of the dark head on the pillow, letting the words flow into the ear somewhere near his lips, "I've been waiting for you to wake up. And now I hear– I hear–"  


He swallows around the tightness in his chest.  


"They tell me you woke up, and I come running all the way over here, and you're still sleeping. But you've been sleeping for a long time, and it's time for you to wake up. For real. You gotta wake up," and he knows he'll be pleading soon. He can't take the stillness or the silence any longer.  


He stands himself up, and reaches down to pull Finn’s limp hand into his own. He hasn’t reached out, hasn’t dared, on any previous visit, to touch Finn, afraid to break whatever spell kept his friend here, not awake, not complete, but breathing and present. Close enough to touch, even though he didn’t bridge the space between them. 

Finn’s hand is dry and lacking in warmth and vitality, but the weight of it feels good where it rests in Poe’s. He flips it over, running his thumbs along the exposed palm, mind half-filled with thoughts of encouraging circulation, scattered longing to memorize Finn’s warmth, the way smooth, dark skin feels against his own, the shape of his hands. A ragged memory of his mother, a woman he vowed to put out of his mind after the First Order took her away, stripping his home of what little warmth and love it had, surfaces; a story she told about palmistry, divining the fortunes of a man from the lines on his palm, and he runs his thumbs along what he thinks is Finn’s lifeline, which seems long and reassuring, whatever truth or false hope under his fingers telling him that Finn has plenty of living ahead of him. 

The faint twitch of the fingers resting in his hands make Poe clutch tight, his eyes raking over the sheets, up to Finn's chest, his face, and he can see his breathing change, can see where the air rushes in to Finn's lungs, rushing out of his nose, the slight parting of lips, and with a wince, Finn opens his eyes.

* * *

The room is too bright. He knows he's not on a star ship, he knows he's not at a base, because he is blinded, nothing like the half-darkness of the First Order barracks. Soldiers don't need light. But the light stabbing him in the eyes, making them water, tears dripping off his lashes as he shuts his eyes against it, is warm. It's sunlight. No starship in the Galaxy has lights that can replicate real sunlight, the way it warms your skin, the clarity of color and energy as it hits your eyes.  

He closes his fingers around the hand in his. His grip is weak, but theirs is warm, the strength is heartening, but more, he has never woken to another’s comforting touch. He rolls his head as much as his stiff neck will allow, and squinting through the tears, past the searing light, he sees tanned arms, and a familiar set of dark curls. Bright eyes are trained on his face, and while he thinks Poe's mouth is moving, he can't make his hearing focus. The sight of this pilot, this compatriot, this man who flew him out of the mouth of hell and let him help without question, is the best thing he can imagine. 

He laughs, but his throat is dry, and his lungs unused to the movement, and he coughs instead, but Poe is holding on tight, and Poe is laughing, while calling for the doctor to bring water, and leaning in close to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull Finn tight against Poe's body, where sweat has made small paths in the dust on his skin, and he smells of engine oil and a long, hot afternoon of work, and Finn does not think he has ever smelled anything so sweet. 

* * *

 

Rey watches Luke across the table. Chewy is up front getting the ship ready. She knows he only did it to give them space. It is not for nothing they sent the newest Force awakened person after the Last Jedi. She knows that Luke Skywalker might be her only chance, without him there is no one to teach her about the Force, unless she wants to go find Kylo Ren, and try her hand at convincing him. Yeah, right. She's sure that, unless she is prepared for him, the next time they meet he will cut her open with a lightsaber, and there will be nothing she can do about it.

So she watches Luke across the table. They gave him a bowl of porridge left over from the dinner they had some time before they landed. Out in the black parts of space it's hard to keep a schedule that makes sense to anything other than your stomach, and so they had dinner before landing on Luke's planet in the middle of its day. 

Rey isn't sure what she expected, exactly, but she is nearly certain that the man sitting across from her is not whatever it was. He looks old. He is the same age as the General, they are twins, after all, but his face is lined much more deeply than hers. She can see that failure has aged him; he carries a heavy heart, which leaves his eyes shadowed, and his shoulders more stooped than they should be. More than her own doubts, she worries that this is not the man the General is waiting for, that the Resistance has hung their hopes on a man who will not be able to save them. 

"Why you?"

The question takes Rey by surprise. Since her greeting to him on the hill, they have not spoken. The climb down the cliff face was made in silence, and they settled themselves in the ship in silence, not even the greeting between Chewie and Luke brought words past their lips. Chewie filled a bowl and put it on the table, in front of Luke, and pushed her towards the other side of the table, so she sat across from him. And she looked at him.

"Because there is no one else to send," she tells him. She knows that maybe it was the wrong thing to say, too blunt, too true, but not in the way the shuttered grief in his eyes suggests. "The General had no one else to spare. After what happened with Kylo Ren and Han Solo, and the Starkiller, she needed to send someone. And I need you to teach me about the Force."

She doesn't know what the expression on his face means until he starts to laugh. It's a rusty, ugly sound. She didn't know it was possible for someone to make a sound like it. Though she wants to recoil–this is not the man she was looking for, this was not the hero she expected to find–she leans forward because she has not lived a thousand days and a thousand more, alone in the desert, by being afraid of things that hurt. 

"Why would I teach you?" he asks, and his smile doesn't reach his eyes, "My last pupil has proven me a failure."

"Because you owe me," the words surprise her, but she knows it's true. She left her home for a battle that had nothing to do with her and the circumstances of fate have made this her war. 

"Is that so?"

"Yeah," and she leans forward a little further, to make sure that Luke Skywalker can see her eyes, "Kylo Ren took me prisoner, and tortured me, and used the Force to reach into my head. Because of your lightsaber, my first memory of snow is how it looks stained with the blood of someone who is trying to kill me. Because your sister and her Resistance brought this war into my life, looking for you. And you are the only person who can teach me how to use the Force to beat Kylo Ren. And I am the only one who can stop him."

She leans back, because she doesn't really need to convince this man of anything, after all. One way or another, she will learn about the Force. She will bring Luke Skywalker to the General, and she will end this war.

Luke gives her a long, unreadable look, before he hunches over his bowl, spoon in hand, to shovel the remaining porridge into his mouth.

* * *

 

 

**ii. everything seems like good news** ****

Poe Dameron might be the greatest fighter pilot the Resistance has ever seen, but, for now, his feet are stuck firmly to the ground.  

His schedule has not changed much since Finn woke up for the first time, two weeks ago. He goes to meetings with the General and her advisors. He works on his ship, and the fleet, making sure they are ready for whatever foul turn the war will take next. And in between, he visits the infirmary where Finn is still quartered. 

After that first awakening, Finn slept for much of the next week. The doctor was right that his weeks and weeks of unconsciousness had yielded little rest. Poe would feel a stab of guilt whenever he would visit Finn, and find him awake, only to be greeted by the bruised-looking skin beneath his eyes, and to watch him fight off the sleep his body was so desperately seeking in the name of being a good host. Finn sorely needed rest, and Poe would be there again, before the day was out. Knowing he was responsible for Finn pushing himself to stay awake made guilt and shame battle within his chest. 

When he tried to stay away, just for an afternoon, during that first week, however, at his next visit, the following morning––not even the next afternoon, like he'd told himself––the doctor cornered him by the door. 

"Where were you yesterday?" her voice was sharp, and her face pinched with disapproval.

"I just," he stammered, "I thought I would let Finn rest. He's been through a lot."

The doctor's eyes narrowed and she bristled; she, more than anyone, knew how much Finn had been through. 

"Don't do it again, I could barely get him to stay in bed. He's in no fit state to be handling that kind of stress. You made time to visit him every day while he was in a coma, you can find time to come visit him now that he's awake. You made the routine, stick to it."

She left him standing in the door, gaping after her. Never before had she told him to spend more time in her infirmary. Usually she was chasing him out, telling him to stop disturbing her patients. Now, practically a gilded invitation to come by as often as possible, well, as often as he had been, which amounted to the same thing. 

So he visits Finn, every day, in the morning, at midday, and in the evening. 

For the first week, Poe regaled him with the stories he'd been telling him while he was asleep, little bits of information about the people in the Resistance, his pilots, past battles. Sometimes, he would find Finn asleep and would sit by the bed, keeping his hands or his thoughts busy, until Finn woke up, or he had to leave. Sometimes, he'd look, in the middle of a story, and find that Finn had fallen asleep, which always made him laugh, even though he didn't know why.

But it seemed that a week of real sleep had done Finn good, and when he was finally awake somewhere shy of half the hours in the day, the doctor started him in on exercises to help him get rid of the stiffness and the muscle loss that had come with the coma. 

Now, when Poe comes to visit, Finn will be sitting up in bed, sometimes lifting things, sometimes merely moving his arms. Today, the doctor cornered him at the door again, and said that if “you insist on being here all the time, make yourself useful" and told him to go with Finn on walks in the evening to help him get his endurance up. 

He makes his way to Finn's bedside, to find him sitting up, holding his arms up in front of himself. Poe can see how much effort it takes, Finn's fingertips shaking with the effort. He finds a grin and plonks down in his usual seat. 

"How do you feel about getting out of here for a while?" he asks Finn with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows. 

Finn lets his arms down and gives him a sardonic look, one eyebrow raised. 

"How does a man feel when you offer him a way out of the desert?" Finn's voice still has a rasp to it now and again, but Poe grins bright at the answer, hopping up.

"Come on, doctor's orders," he holds a hand out to Finn who is pushing himself to sit on the edge of the bed, feet dangling down off the side, "Let's get you the hell out of here!"

* * *

 Poe's visits are the only thing that make being awake bearable. Finn hates the long hours where he can't fall asleep, because of how much sleep he has been getting. Usually, those long hours of uninterrupted contemplation visit him when everyone else is sleeping, the infirmary dark, lit only by some small blue light from beyond the curtains around his bed. 

Sometimes he wakes up and he's confused again about where he is, and why he isn't on a starship, why he isn't in the First Order barracks. But Poe lights up the room, he's always got a smile for Finn, nothing like the warm professionalism of the doctor, or the cheery demeanors of some of the nurses. Poe's smiles bloom when he sees Finn, and no one has ever been happy to see him. Poe tells him stories and talks about the meetings he goes to with the General and her advisors. Fighting off sleep to keep listening to Poe's voice during that first week was always worth it, the sleep following one of Poe's visits (usually starting during it, then) always sweeter than the sleep he found on his own. The nights when he couldn't sleep, after Poe had come to see him in the evening, were always shorter than the ones he had to face alone, without the memory of Poe's voice or the way his hands would sketch diagrams in the air as he spoke. 

The exercises the doctor has him doing make him hurt all over. He knows they’re for his own good, and that they chase away the restless pins and needles that haunt his fingers and toes, but he feels stupid doing them, and worse, he feels stupid for needing them. He used to be able to run and fight, and now he can barely stand to hold his arm out for a half a minute without becoming exhausted. 

Right now, Finn has his legs hanging off the side of his bed, looking down past his knees at his sock-swaddled toes. He's in his shirt sleeves, and he knows he's going to be cold, no matter what the temperature is outside, because he's always cold since waking up. 

Poe has his hand out to him to help him stand, and it hurts to think that he’s going to need it. His feet feel sort of tingly, even just hanging over the edge, with the blood reaching down into his toes. He pushes himself over the edge, and the soles of his feet send a sharp signal to his brain when they touch the ground, his own weight (less now than it was) pushing his feet into the floor and it _hurts._ Poe grabs his elbow, steadying him, and Finn hadn’t even realized that he was in danger of overbalancing. But Poe’s grip is strong and warm, and it is exactly what he needs to stand up a little straighter, to pull his back up, and take a deep breath to look up from his feet. 

He looks over at Poe, to see a smile playing on the man’s lips, sharp amusement warring with something he thinks might be happiness. Finn can’t quite find it in him to return it, the aching in his feet and his calves, the hard knots of muscles that seem to make up his quads and his back already draining him. His skin prickles with sweat from the mere effort of standing, and he was right about the cold. He hunches his shoulders to try and preserve what little body heat he can, and looks over when Poe’s hand disappears from his elbow. 

He parts his lips to ask a question, but Poe is already turning back around, something in his hands. He holds up his jacket with another bright grin, and Finn feels his face relax into a smile. 

“The sun’s setting, so it’s starting to cool down out there,” Poe says, and holds the jacket open from the shoulders so that Finn can slide his arms into the sleeves. 

“It doesn’t help,” Finn clears his throat, voice still hoarse from the long sleep, “Doesn’t help that I’m cold all the time.”

Poe’s brow furrows, concern managing to enhance his features, and Finn feels a flash of guilt for worrying him. Poe has already extended such a kindness to him with his visits and his attention, Finn shouldn’t add unnecessarily to that burden. 

“Hm,” Poe’s note of consideration breaks through Finn’s thoughts, and he looks over, before looking down and realizing he’s still in his socks. He huffs out a laugh and when Poe asks him, “What?” voice sharp with curiosity, Finn points down at his toes.

“No shoes.” 

“Wait here a minute,” Poe replies and ducks past the curtain. Finn makes his way over to Poe’s usual seat, a chair near the head of his bed. He eases himself down into it, and while his back protests the change in posture, he feels like some of the tension winding him tight is leaving.

Poe returns not a minute later, brandishing a pair of familiar boots, smile back in place. 

He presents them with a theatrical display, and a boisterous, “Here!” And Finn takes them with another smile, and a quiet “Thanks.”

* * *

 

 Poe watches Finn put his shoes on with deliberate motions. He then takes a deep breath and pushes himself up, Poe steps forward, ready to steady him, but holds himself back. The only thing worse than injury, is the insult of being treated like an invalid.   
  
Finn doesn't look at him while they make their way out of the infirmary. His steps are slow, and Poe slows his pace to match, and darts a look at his friend from the corner of his eye, he can see the sweat sheening Finn's brow. He is already starting to breath hard.  
  
They make their way in silence, stepping out of the infirmary and into the cooling evening. Poe sees Finn’s shoulders hunch briefly against the fresh air. They continue their slow way across the packed dirt path to where the hill the infirmary is perched on gives way. Though maybe only ten feet above the rest of the camp, it overlooks the long row of ships the Resistance has at their disposal, where Poe spends his afternoons, and that gives way in turn to a grassy expanse that runs up to the foot of the next hill, where trees and rocks obscure the rising ground from view. They stop at the edge, Poe can hear voices from the cluster of buildings that make up most of the sleeping quarters and house the mess, the sound of conversation and laughter carries on the wind, without bringing any of the words with it. He looks out at all the ships, and thinks of how much more they have to do. The fleet is well maintained, and their pilots and engineers are skilled, but the First Order has an army.

He hears Finn let out a deep breath next to him, and looking over, he watches Finn’s eyes track the edge of the forest, then up, and up, until he’s looking at the stars starting to dot the sky. They stand out against the deep violet backdrop, edging as it is, slowly, into dark blue. Poe sees the way Finn’s face relaxes, losing the fierce edge that usually haunts his expression. He wonders when Finn last saw stars appearing in a dark night sky. He fears that Finn’s only memory of the stars is watching them fly past a star ship window. 

Finn looks over to find him staring, and Poe feels a flash of warmth in his cheeks at having been caught. But Finn let’s it go without comment, instead saying, “Show me your ship."

Poe looks down at the fleet, his ship is halfway down the long line of them. Further, he expects, than Finn is ready to go, just yet. But Finn asked, and he doesn’t want to tell him no. Instead he points to a ship closer to the foot of their little hill. 

“Do you see that one, there? The one with the tarp over the right wing,” he looks over to make sure Finn is following him, “It came over in the belly of a big cruiser. There is a freight merchant captain with Resistance sympathies who comes through now and again. He’ll bring recruits who are seeking us out, and he sometimes brings old equipment he comes across on his travels.”

Poe cannot help but remember how the ship came to him. Zandifar, the freighter’s captain, has more sympathy for the Resistance than the merchant, but he’s reluctant to tell Finn about the young captain. Zandifar, at only thirty-three, is one of the youngest long haul captains Poe has ever met. He was younger, still, when they first crossed paths, Zandifar only a crewman, working in navigation. Poe was nineteen, drunk, alone, in a bar in a deep space outpost very far from home. He had made his way across the arm of the galaxy working ship repairs in exchange for travel, podracing on backwater planets for quick credits, and starting bar fights when he worried he might lose his mind with the knowledge of how far he could travel and never get anywhere. 

Zandifar took pity on him, and when he realized that Poe knew his way around an engine, despite the drunken digressions in their conversation, he shuffled him onto the ship with a word to the first mate. Poe earned his place tinkering in the engine rooms and getting burns on his hands behind electrical panels, but it was many weeks of slow travel towards the seat of the Republic before Zandifar ever got the secret of Poe’s hope for a place with the Resistance out of him. He remembers the sad look in his eyes when Zandifar realized that he carried a damage greater than youthful indiscretion in his heart. The months Poe spent with Zandifar were some of the sweetest he can recall. The days of work and sweat in the engines, laughter and meals with Zan, and nights remembering that there was more to human touch than just fists and blood, or the momentary, anonymous relief of a stranger’s hands in some beer drenched back alley. 

Zandifar stops by when he comes through Resistance territory, usually bearing some gift for Poe, though he has done nothing to deserve it. The ship was from over a year ago, a birthday present that Poe has spent many spare hours working on, hoping some day to make her space worthy. It’s bigger than a dart, meant for longer travel, to be manned by a crew of two. 

“I’ve been fixing her up for a year now, trying to get her ready,” he explains. The look Finn is giving him says that he knows Poe is leaving something out of the story. But he sends his friend a teasing grin, and says, “Come and meet her.”

* * *

 

Half a pace behind Poe, Finn wonders what kinds of friends the man has that will give him a ship as a gift. Broken or not, hauling ships across the galaxy is expensive, and to deliver one that _doesn’t_ work to a man who might die at the hands of his enemies at any moment seems like a lot of trouble.   

But Poe is telling him all about the work he’s been doing on the ship. If Finn has understood––the technical aspects a little beyond him and Poe’s voice fading in and out as Finn watches where he puts his feet, already tired from their little trek––the ship had most of it’s parts, bar some of the air recycler tubing, and some bits and pieces of the landing gear. But it had been badly maintained during its use, and left to rust when it was retired. Poe had needed to pull apart most of its mechanical pieces and clean them up. He had rewired pieces of the engine and the flight controls to make it run more smoothly (and just to prove he could) but the cabin, with its consolidated sleeping space and tiny kitchen were still caked in grime, the joints of the cabinets and fold out appliances sticky with age, and the plumbing clogged. 

“Even though I’m mostly done with the mechanical aspects, the ship is basically unusable because living in it would be a complete nightmare,” Poe says, his slow gait, made to match Finn’s own, slowing to a halt before the body of the ship. He looks over at Finn.

“I didn’t really think about making it habitable. It’s built for two, and I’ve never had anyone to fly with,” Finn can see something speculative in the pilot’s eyes, but he’s not sure what it might be. “You can’t fly out into the black on your own. It’ll make you crazy out there with no one but yourself for company.”

Finn has lived on starships on those long trips out in the black parts of space between the stars. He wants to tell Poe that even on a ship full of breathing bodies, the emptiness can still find a way to crawl inside you. But the tension in his friend’s voice, and hiding in the lines around his eyes, makes Finn think that Poe is not a stranger to the feeling.

“It’s bigger up close,” he says, instead. He takes another couple of steps forward until he’s standing shoulder to shoulder with the pilot, his jacket catching on the sleeves of Poe’s shirt. He’s looking up at the ship, the side of it, caked in old grime and covered in dust, fills his vision. It is not a very tall ship, the top of it some ten feet taller than him, but he bets that inside, the ceiling wouldn’t even be a whole foot above his head. He reaches out a hand, hesitant, but brushes some dirt off a patch in front of him, the ship is made of a smooth, but varied metal, which shows a purple sheen in the light of a lamp lit behind them. 

Finn laughs, “Dameron, you got yourself a purple ship?”

Poe grins back at him, mischievous.

“She’s a lady, purple is a regal color!” he objects.

“You mean you just haven’t gotten around to picking a better one.”

Poe laughs, “Beggars can’t be choosers!”

And they spend the last of the dying light before darkness settles over the camp completely, inspecting every inch of Poe’s ship, Finn making suggestions and jokes about Poe’s complete failure to account for more than the mechanical wellbeing of the craft, and Poe laughs, his eyes trained on Finn, unable to look away.

* * *

 

 

**iii. a lifetime pretending to be me** ****

Rey, Chewbacca, and Luke settle into a routine pretty quickly. Whoever is in charge of the overnight watch up in the cockpit spends the night in the pilot’s chair keeping an eye on the ship readouts, and making sure no trouble is coming to meet them. When the other two wake up, one cooks something to eat while the other two get themselves resettled, and they all eat together before the overnight watch heads to their bunk and the other two get busy with clean up and routine ship maintenance. 

Whoever was on night watch is usually up by the time the afternoon meal is ready, and they eat together again, before Chewy heads into the bowels of the ship so, in theory, Luke and Rey can hash out the next round of Jedi training. 

The schedule is definitely easier than the overlapping shifts Rey and Chewy had been using to get out to Luke’s planet. But the first week or so found Rey sitting across from Luke after the afternoon meal was cleared, engaged in a silent battle of wills. She had spent some time on her own, especially when Chewy was sleeping and she was alone with BB-8 in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, trying to find that pull that she realized was the Force. 

Her first opportunities to use the Force were born of desperation, and it was harder to find without the fear of certain death looming over her. She could feel the edges of the place of calm she found facing Kylo Ren in the snow, but stepping back into it was proving almost impossible. 

Meanwhile, Luke was mostly silent. He would watch her across the table, and she wasn’t sure what he was looking for. She didn’t like the way his gaze felt on her skin, though it lacked the painful pulling of Kylo Ren’s reach into her mind, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Luke’s observation was meant to achieve the same ends. It made her miss the heat of the sand and the sun. The Falcon was better than the worn out shell she had called home, but the silent dark of space felt overwhelming. At times she lay awake in her bunk, the ship’s hum buzzing in her head, trying to remember exactly what the wind rushing over her little hovel sounded like. 

But today, rather than the usual comforting blankness of sleep, she woke from a dream. 

She had been standing on the grassy plain on the edge of the Resistance encampment, she could hear people talking to each other, and though the sun was bright, she couldn’t feel it on her skin, and though the wind caused the grass around her to sway, it passed over her without running through her hair. There was a pulsing in her head. It was like a sound and not a sound, pressing against her perception and then disappearing. She realized that though it emanated from the Resistance camp, it came from the buildings rather than the open space with the ships that she remembered as her last view of the place before she left. 

She made her way towards them, and though it was hard to move her legs, each step taking an interminable moment, she reached the buildings in less than ten full strides. She was standing on a hill, overlooking the ships, clusters of people here and there. She could see the General, her brow drawn tight and lips thin with worry, conversing with a small group. For a moment the General looked up towards her, but her gaze went through Rey and then she looked away, drawn back into conversation. Footfalls echoed behind her, and turning around she saw Poe, the fighter pilot, in his shirt sleeves, sweat dampening his dark curls, and making the hollow beneath his jaw glisten. His hands were covered in engine grease, and she stepped aside just as he moved through the spot she had been occupying. Following him with her eyes, she realized he was heading in the direction of the sound, and now that she was closer, she was sure it was a sound. 

She followed behind the pilot, with her disconcerting gliding steps, and it resolved itself into something like a beeping, like a machine. Poe stepped through a doorway, and they were inside. Her eyes needed no time to adjust from the harsh light of the sun outside to the soft way its rays lit the inside of the building, filtering through curtained windows. The building was silent except for the noise, the beeping that had drawn her here, which seemed to overtake the space, echoing off the walls of her skull. The pilot’s motions were silenced in the space, he made his way soundlessly down the hall until he came to a set of free standing curtains, which he slipped inside. With barely a thought, her step took her to the curtains which she slipped between to find the pilot sitting beside a hospital bed. 

The noise was deafening here, and she desperately wanted to cover her ears, and she looked at the bed, where it was emanating from and––Finn! The dream went silent. The room faded away, and she found herself seated where the pilot had been, an endless expanse of nothing surrounding her and Finn. His skin was dark against the pale blue of the sheets, and for a moment she thought they might suddenly be back in the desert, where he stood out against the unbroken color of the sand. But he was still in the bed, and she reached out to touch him, remembering the smooth texture of his skin beneath her dry, calloused hands, the warmth of him as he grabbed her hand. 

_He was always trying to hold her hand._

She held his tightly, while the room wavered for a moment, and then, though she could still feel his hand in hers, she was looking down on Finn sitting up in bed, Poe telling him a story that made him laugh, or suddenly he was sleeping and Poe, again, making his way to sit beside him, watching him sleep for a moment before pulling a bit of machinery from his pocket, but then the room was dark and Finn was tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable in the silence of the nighttime infirmary, and Rey could feel the thoughts rushing through his head, the old loneliness under his questions, something that felt like her name circling, circling, and then rolling over onto his back, he looked up towards the ceiling, his eyes suddenly on hers, and she heard––no, _felt_ him take a deep breath, and the thing that felt like her name settled, and something warm and bright bloomed in his chest which, without looking like anything but a feeling, filled her head with the smell of engine grease and sweat, big, warm hands, and an unmistakable grin topped with dark curls. 

The infirmary faded back in and she was standing next to Finn’s bed, his hand still in hers, and the pilot keeping vigil at his bedside. The vision faded, and when she opens her eyes, the newly familiar dark walls of her bunk on the Falcon greet her, and her hand feels cold and empty. Her skin hurts thinking how far, how many weeks away, they are from real sunlight. She rolls onto her side, curling up under her blanket, and feels the rough weave of her pillow catch on the damp skin of her cheeks. 

When she finds herself sitting across from Luke Skywalker, that afternoon, Rey doesn’t let the silence reign. She thinks of Finn, his face smooth in sleep as she walked away to get on a ship to go somewhere no one in the galaxy had ever heard of. She lets the memory of his grip on her hand, his palms smooth where hers were rough, the way he pulled her through the market, BB-8 spinning along behind them suffuse her with warmth.

“They have been looking for you for a very long time,” she says. Luke goes completely still, and before that moment Rey would have sworn that he had already been still, but he goes rigid at the sound of her voice. 

“They think that you are the only one who can save them,” she continues. “With you gone, Kylo Ren is the only one who knows how to use the Force. The General––your sister––has been fighting this battle alone for too long.”

Luke closes his eyes, and Rey wonders if this is what shame looks like on him.

“She has been fighting a war against her only son, alone. And now that Han Solo is gone, she has no one left.”

Rey stops, she remembers then what it felt like, knowing truly, for the first time, that she was alone. For too long she had waited, alone in the sands, for the return of people who were already gone. Finn, in his desperation and his fear, had pulled her out of the long wait. He grabbed her hand and kept holding on, even after she made it clear that she wanted to go home, that she needed to wait, and would not go with him if he wanted to run. But holding Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, the words of the old innkeeper wouldn’t let her go. In the end, Finn’s hand in hers was all she had, someone else dragged into a war they were not ready to fight, but standing there beside her, nonetheless.

“Han Solo wasn’t able to do what was right,” Luke says, his voice almost blending in with the hum of the Falcon’s engines. “A boy without a father cannot know what is right.”

Rey looks at him.

“You don’t believe that, or you would teach me how to use the Force,” she says, “Kylo Ren did what he did because he wanted to hurt his father or his mother, I don’t really know, but you are the one you say is guilty for what he became.” 

Luke doesn’t look at her, she can see his jaw working. 

“Han Solo was ready to do what he had to, he wanted to come home to your sister and end this war. He kept me and Finn and BB-8 safe until we got to the Resistance. He walked into the heart of danger, and he gave his son the only thing he had left to give.” 

Luke looks up at her then. Rey looks back at him, seeing his eyes, and whatever old pain lived in them. She takes a deep breath.

“I don’t really understand what happened to make all of this. I understand that Kylo Ren tortured me. I understand that he killed thousands of people. I understand that more will die, unless we stop him. I had a future, sitting in the desert, waiting for my family to come home. Instead, I left my only friend behind, to be cared for by the Resistance, whose war we are now fighting, to come find a legend I didn’t believe in, because those same people believe that you can stop Kylo Ren.”

Luke is looking at her in a way she neither understands nor appreciates.

“If this war is the source of all the pain and the violence, if the only way to make sure Finn doesn’t have to fight is to end this war, and if, the only way to end this war is to use the Force, then you will teach me to use the Force,” Rey is tired of this argument. It has sat between them since they first sat across each other at this table. Her family is never coming home, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have people she cares for and who care for her. She doesn’t want to fight a war, but she has people worth fighting for. She wants to _end_ this war, but that doesn’t mean she wanted to travel to the ends of the galaxy without a single friend by her side. War has proven to be like the desert; the only way to get what you want is to push until you find the weak places in another person’s armor. Kindness has too high a price. 

Finally, Luke Skywalker speaks. 

“That’s why you want to learn to use the Force?”

And Rey knows that she has won.

* * *

The time comes where Poe cannot put the General off any longer. Finn is recovered, at least enough, and he has been put to work doing odd jobs around the camp. No one is sure what to assign him to do, because, unlike the others who come to the Resistance, Finn has no previous life on which to draw on about what he might like to do, never mind what he might be good at.  

The General tells him to see her after the morning meeting. He dutifully waits behind, his fingers tapping restlessly against his leg, not sure what to expect from her. She waits until all the others file out of the big room, and she leans against the table they usually gather around. 

“Your dedication to your friend––”

Poe interrupts, “He’s not just–– I’m responsible for him––”

But she continues over his babbling, “While your dedication to your friend is _admirable_ , the rest of us still have need of you.”

There is a wry expression on her face, but Poe feels a stab of guilt. Han Solo is gone, and much of the General’s good humor with him. She had told him before that he reminded her of her husband, a comment which never failed to make him worry, being equal parts damnation and praise. 

“I’m sorry, General,” he intones. The ranks have suffered greatly, Finn not the only one wounded, and their numbers are depleted both by injury and death. He knows what is coming. He used to leap at the chance, but reluctance dogs the revelation this time. 

“We need you to go out on a recruitment mission,” the General is matter-of-fact. He knows she can see the places where his commitment is eating away at him. She has known him too long. “We won’t send you far, you are not the only one reluctant to be far from home. But we need more people.” 

The General avoids the word “soldiers” whenever she can. Though she might keep the military title, she does not believe their movement has much in common with an army. There is no greater cause at work for her than a desire to stop the endless cycle of fear and violence. Armies fight for ideals, she always says, we are merely fighting for survival. 

Poe nods in understanding. Happy to leave it at that, just the reminder that they have work ahead, no matter how small his world has become for the moment. But the General continues.

“Poe. We are facing a war here. What we were doing before were skirmishes. Small victories against a giant enemy. Kylo Ren is the least of our worries. Though I fully believe him capable of great works, be they for good or evil,” the thread of pride and love in her voice, unable to be fully excised makes Poe’s heart ache for her, “He did not make this war. He merely offered himself as a tool.” 

Poe thinks that of all the awful things Kylo Ren has done, of all the hurts he has inflicted upon his mother, that is the greatest one. That he did not dare to dream bigger, that he did not act for himself, as his own man, but rather allowed himself to be used. He wonders if the General blames her brother, blames the teachings of the Jedi for not teaching her son that he was not merely a disciple, but a master. 

“We will need bodies for this war, Poe,” she says, her voice already heavy with the grief to come, “We will need bodies, and resources, and all the help we can get. And I’m still not sure we have any hope.”

Luke Skywalker is a dream, Poe realizes. Like everyone else, he has been waiting for the mythic hero to return. With the lost Jedi, they would be untouchable. But that’s not it at all. The General does not believe that Luke Skywalker can save them. Poe isn’t sure she even really believes he is out there, and by sending Rey to look for him, she has gambled that the hope of rescue can carry their forces through to whatever end awaits them. 

The General has trusted him with a secret so big, a truth so bleak, that Poe wants to ask her to take it back. His soul was not made to bear the weight of this secret; he is a man who took flight because the feeling of gravity pulling him down almost broke him. But when he looks at her, he knows that he cannot do it. She is standing tall, she is still regal even though she has not been a Princess for decades, but she is so small. When Han Solo left, no matter the guilt he carried or the pain he caused her, he put the weight of the world on her shoulders. With Han Solo dead, with Luke gone, with Kylo Ren yoked to the First Order, Leia Organa has mourned all of the men she has loved, and held tight to the flame of hope for a better future, which burns on what little is left of a fractured legend and the bitter dregs of her memories. 

“Where do you want us to go first?”

* * *

 

Poe has a wild look in his eyes when he finds Finn that afternoon. He watches the pilot make his way to where he’s sitting in the shade near the sleeping quarters. He spent the day following after a former plumber turned camp maintenance chief on his rounds of the buildings. He saw more wrenches today than he’d ever seen before (as far as he knows) and he can’t remember the name of a single one of them. 

Poe’s voice sounds strained as he throws Finn a “hey” when he gets within hailing distance. Finn doesn’t say anything, but he stands up. The set of Poe’s shoulders, determined and tight with tension, is setting off alarm bells in his head. The sight leaves him feeling like a prisoner facing a firing squad, blinded, but with an unpleasant feeling of anticipation sitting in his gut.

“Come up to the room,” Poe says when he’s standing in front of Finn. Finn had been sitting beneath the tree growing out of a little raised patch of ground near the sleeping quarters. Standing on its ledge, he has to look down to meet Poe’s eyes. His brows are heavy over their warm brown, like storm clouds promising rain, but Poe returns Finn’s gaze unafraid, and so he hops off the little ledge, making them eye-level again, nodding to his friend to lead the way.

The stairs up to Poe’s quarters are narrow and creaky. The pilot walks up them double time, and Finn follows him. Poe didn’t spend the afternoon outside working on his ship, or any of the fleet, and he’s wearing his jacket (not the one that Finn kept) which is as close as he has to a uniform. He misses the relaxed air of Poe in his shirt sleeves, the spots of grease, the shape of his shoulders beneath the soft material. Poe looks ready for anything in his flight jacket, an aesthetic not without its appeal, as Finn can attest––he knows exactly what his friend looks like ready to take on whatever the Galaxy has in store. But in the jacket, he is Captain Poe Dameron, best pilot the Resistance has ever seen. In his time worn short sleeved shirts, he is just Poe––Finn’s closest friend. 

Finn takes the stairs at a slower pace, but two at a time as he follows Poe up to his room. When they make the door, Poe drops his keys and curses, before successfully opening the door. Finn makes his way into the now familiar space. The quotidian shabbiness of the room is an unsettling counterpoint to Poe’s unfamiliar edginess. The sink to the left of the door still drips, Poe’s bed, just barely big enough for two people, is still pushed into the back right corner of the room. His desk, on the other wall, is still scattered with data chips and engine pieces. Finn wants to knock something over, make the room reflect the imbalance between them.

He turns around to find Poe leaning against the door, not having moved since he shut it behind himself. 

“What’s going on?” Finn can’t stop the question, Poe’s grim expression starting to infect him, too.

“The General says we need more people to join the Resistance.”

Finn waits for an explanation. So the General needs new people, what does that have to do with either of them?

Poe watches him, and when Finn doesn’t say anything he lets out a heavy breath.

“She likes to have me go along on the recruitment trips. She says that nothing gets people’s blood flowing like meeting ‘the Resistance’s top pilot’.”

This is the first time Finn has heard Poe reference his unofficial title with anything other than amusement or pride. Poe looks tired, the grief that underpins his daring edging out to diminish his usually confident posture. 

“How long are you going to be gone?” Finn asks. Rey has been gone for nearly two months and, even semi-settled in the Resistance camp, Finn has no overabundance of friends. Poe’s absence would leave more than a gap, it would tear a hole in the life Finn has been building here. 

“Not long,” Poe is quick to assure him. The relief Finn can see in his friend makes him wonder if he has been tethering him planetside for all this time. “As short as I can make it.”

Then again, maybe not. 

“I know we need new bodies, new blood, but I just wish I didn’t—” Poe rakes his hand through his dark hair, fingers disappearing between his curls. He tips his head back against the door, squeezing his eyes shut, mouth twisted to the side. Finn watches his throat bob as he swallows. The light coming through the window behind him hits Poe’s jaw just so, making the points where the bone presses up against the skin sharp. Poe takes a deep breath, eyes opening to find Finn’s. He holds his breath, and it feels like the moment stretches for a small eternity between them.

Finn isn’t really surprised that Poe kisses him. He _is_ surprised that he kisses Poe back. His hands come up to grip Poe’s jacket, and then the biceps beneath. Poe kisses with force, pushing their mouths hard together, lips tasting of desperation. Finn closes his eyes, letting his awareness fade out, until he’s just the sensation of Poe’s lips, and tongue, and teeth, the muscles in his arms moving beneath Finn’s hands—Finn wants to live in this moment—the scratch of their chins brushing together, and the angle of Poe’s mouth as he licks into Finn’s. 

The kiss is a revelation. It feels like coming home. After the madness his life has become since crossing paths with Poe Dameron on a desert outpost, the warm familiarity of _this_ man’s body pressed against his should feel more unexpected. But Poe made that decision to trust him; took him at his word, helped him escape, and Finn doesn’t think that there is anything in the universe that could make him regret any of the terror and grief he has lived between that first moment and this one. The prices he has paid in fear and blood are small currency compared to the wealth of feeling he can feel blooming in his chest.

Poe pulls him back, until Finn is pressing the pilot against the door, one hand pressed flat to hold his weight as he tries to push them even closer together, the other clasped tight around Poe’s hip. Poe’s hands run over the exposed skin of his neck, pressing warm against his skin through the material of his shirt. They stay locked in an embrace until the sun sets. Finn sleeps in Poe’s bed, rather than his usual kip in the infirmary, the pilot a warm, soft weight next to him. 

He wakes up the next morning to an empty bed, and an empty room, Poe gone before the sun had even broken the horizon.

* * *

 

Without Poe planetside to find him and take him to some new corner of the camp or show him some overlooked view, Finn finds himself at loose ends. After the first afternoon spent wandering aimlessly over the grounds, only to end up in front of Poe’s empty sleeping quarters, he decides to spend his afternoons with Poe’s fixer-upper spaceship. 

He starts with the outside. He gets soap and water, a bucket and a sponge and a ladder, and gets to washing off the grime caked on the outside of the ship. He realizes that he was wrong, before; Poe’s ship isn’t purple, instead it's almost black, but where the sunlight touches it, the light making it glitter purple and dark blue, flecked with green, like the sky after the sun has set.

He likes the thought that Poe’s ship is a spectre, almost invisible, but that it is not the unforgiving black of deep space, like the First Order ships. Instead the ship is the warm darkness he’s learning to associate with evenings in early summer.

It takes him almost two full afternoons, working from after the midday meal until not even the big work lamps are enough to see by. His hands hurt, raw and tender from the harsh soap. But when he see the ship the next morning, from the Infirmary overlook, gleaming beetle dark in the sunlight, it’s all worth it. 

He starts next on the inside. True to his boasting, Poe has made sure all the major electrical circuits in the ship work, but the lights in the ship only give off a dim glow, murky from the dust that clings to all the interior surfaces. Finn cleans the lights first, making it so he can see the full extent of the neglect inside the ship. 

His first pass through is just to wipe grime off the lights, and he does the best he can to take stock of the necessary cleaning and repairs that will make the ship habitable by more than small burrowing rodents. All the hard surfaces need a thorough rubbing down with cloth and soap. There are streaks and patches on the walls, ceiling, and floor, where someone had pushed their fingers through the grime. A panel here or there will be mostly free of dust and filth, Finn can only assume they were cleaned in the process of Poe’s repairs. 

The ship has very few soft surfaces, mostly seat covers, but also a few sets of curtains. He finds the burrowing rodents he was expecting in the mass of shreds he assumes was once the mattress in the bunk. 

He thanks whichever spirit looks out for the designs of harebrained ship makers, because all the seat covers, on the chairs in the cockpit, and the stools in the kitchen, can be taken off by unfastening them from the chairs themselves. He goes through the ship, pulling off the seat covers and pulling down the curtains. There isn’t much, all told, and often whichever bits aren’t caked with dirt, have been eaten away by time, or tiny creatures, he isn’t always sure. The bed is a lost cause, so he strips it of its pathetic coverings and pulls the mass of dirty, matted fibres to the edge of flat ship field and hopes that nothing will eat the little rodents whose chittering and rustling he could hear emitting from the swaddled bundle. 

He spends the next week lurking in the mess which in the afternoons is given over to the various home maintenance projects that occupy the members of the Resistance when they are not actively attending to the business of war. Finn finds it refreshing; the First Order ships didn’t have an equivalent. Everything was manufactured and taken care of, there were simulation rooms that could be used for training sessions that resembled some kind of war game, but outside of sleeping, eating, and unit training there was no real work to be done. There were maintenance rotations and planetside barrack lodgings which offered the occasional opportunity for a small dirt ball tournament here or there. 

Idleness was encouraged; it left everyone on edge and ready for a fight. Finn could deal with the quiet; he would watch the other soldiers, watching the ways their personalities played off each other, sometimes making small bets with himself about when this or that grudge would come to a head or which forbidden inter-unit association would finally be consummated and eventually discovered and dismantled by the commanders. 

But the Resistance is made up of plumbers and farmers and carpenters and weavers and mechanics and poets and teachers and doctors and seamstresses and all of them bring that with them into this new life. The mess will become an impromptu bazaar of skills and necessities. Finn sits quietly at the edge of a group made of women and grizzled spacemen and watches their fingers as they pull needle and thread through cloth to patch old clothes or make new covers and coverings for any number of uses. Some of them watch him with suspicion and some with curiosity, but he tries to keep himself from meeting their eyes so that none will feel encouraged to satisfy their desire to puzzle him out. 

They warm up to him, the women before the spacers, gossip and curiosity overcoming reluctance. He finds himself returning smiles and nods as he walks around the camp in the mornings—slowly, but surely. More importantly, he gets help learning how to cut his spare cloth to the size of his badly replicated patterns, and eventually even the most grizzled long haul spacer has had enough of his incompetence and ignorance of a good stitch technique that Finn has been taught at least three different kinds of stitches; one to bind edges together, one to make his corners come out neat, one to keep his fastening flaps in place.

* * *

 

By the middle of the second week, Poe’s ship is nearly unrecognizable inside. Finn can’t help the pangs of anxiety that Poe will take offense at the liberties that he has taken. He hopes that Poe doesn't think him presumptuous or that this is somehow a criticism of Poe’s own upkeep of his ship.  

Deep down, Finn feels like he’s trying to reach out and keep hold of Poe the way he did before, with Rey’s hand. If Finn has put blood and sweat into perfecting Poe’s beautiful ship, maybe when Poe inevitably flies away in it, he’ll take Finn with him. 

He doesn’t know where they stand anymore. Kissing isn’t an entirely common practice between friends, and not the kind of long, languid, all-night kind of kisses they shared before Poe flew off on his recruiting mission. Finn knows that Poe has a reputation, he’s not callous enough to be considered a real heartbreaker, but he’s known for having a bit of fun where he can find it. Finn doesn’t know if that’s what passed between them, nor how he feels about it. If Poe just wants to be friends, Finn doesn’t think he’ll mind, but he’d prefer that if they are friends that there not be too much kissing involved, because it is confusing to have to balance which behaviors are acceptable and when. Friendship is still new, something that Finn has found his way into by accident, something else that separates his new life from his old life, the Resistance from the First Order. 

Without Poe here at the basecamp, Finn has no one to ask these questions. Regardless of the outcome, Finn is impatient for Poe to return; to see what he thinks of the ship, to have his friend back by his side. Rey, his only other friend, is already too far away for Poe to be anywhere but next to Finn.

* * *

 

The new recruits are coming, blinking in the midday sun, out of the ships landed in the dusty circle that serves as a docking station. Finn is standing off to the side, watching them come out of the ship, watching them as they look around, their eyes adjusting, catching on the motley crowd waiting for them, eyes finally landing on the General who waits with her advisors to greet—and inspect—them. He wonders what it feels like, seeing the Resistance, its dirty, ragged fighters, its old, patched up ships, its tired—but unbroken—leadership, having waited your whole life to join them. 

Finn ran blindly into the arms of the Resistance. Finn would have left long ago if not for Rey—her fate now wrapped up in the galactic game of the Force, of Jedi and Sith, of good and evil—and if not for Poe, to whom he owes his life, not just in fact, but in his spirit, which has been illuminated by the pilot's friendship and affection. He cannot imagine the fight that brings people to the Resistance, not quite willingly, but driven by loss and anger, the kind of emotions that bridge the long arms of the Galaxy, and pull people from their homes to travel beyond familiar stars with the hope of eradicating their lives of evil. 

He keeps his eyes trained on the open doors of the ship, watching the flow of new fighters, new recruits, slowing to a trickle. The crew coming out last, laughing with one another, shielding their eyes to scan the crowd for friends and loved ones. He see Poe, rakish smirk in place, his new jacket dangling from two fingers over his shoulder, his white shirt bright in the sunlight, making his skin a warm tan, the muscles in his arm standing out. He nods to the General, but doesn’t pause in his search and finally he looks over and sees him, and Finn’s skin feels tight. Poe’s smile, the one that overtakes the aura of the Resistance's best pilot, is impossible not to return, and Finn makes an involuntary start forward, as Poe starts making his way to him.

* * *

 

 

_On the edge of the crowd, she spots a dark face. She stops and stares for a moment, trying to see better, to make sure, but the pull of the crowd moves her forward and she loses sight of him. And it has to be HIM, whom she expected never to see again, but he’s here. Older, expressions and posture alien, unrecognizable, but a defiance in those eyes she would never have been able to forget._

 

_“Ziza.”_

 

* * *

Sitting in the shared eating hall, Finn yanks on Poe’s sleeve. Poe looks over at him, surprised by the force of Finn’s frown. His friend’s demeanor is rarely what one would call “sunny” but his serious expression is nevertheless usually smooth. The scowl on his face reminds Poe that Finn was trained to kill, though his spirit rejected that particular burden of war. 

“What’s up?” he asks, following Finn’s gaze to the table of fresh meat. The new recruits still huddle together at meal times, not talking much between themselves, but unable to approach the old guard, just yet. He frowns a bit, and quirks a brow at Finn, catching his eye in question.

“One of them keeps staring at me,” Finn’s voice has an edge to it. Poe knows that Finn still keeps mostly to himself. There has never been another Stormtrooper defection before him, to their knowledge. And while most of the Resistance doesn’t know what he is—nor, in general, do people usually ask why someone has joined the fight—Finn is uncomfortable around the others. Poe doesn’t know what they do to make you a Stormtrooper. He has been afraid to ask Finn about it, afraid to know how people are stripped down, left with nothing but the letters and numbers and white armor they are given. Finn never talks about a family or a home world, and Poe doesn’t ask, because he doesn’t know how.

Finn grips his utensils a little tighter and turns his head back to glare down at his plate.

“She’s doing it again. The girl with the braids, sitting near the end of the table, next to the big guy.”

Poe looks back over, and sure enough, there is a tall, dark skinned girl, not quite a woman, but close, her hair braided in little strands pulled back into two thick braids sitting on either side of her neck. He remembers her. They landed on her planet, the landscape a dusty scrubland dotted with fat trees topped with tiny barely flowering branches, surrounding the tall, packed-dirt and mud buildings. They were clumped together making a warren of twisty alleys and awning-covered streets where all manner of people from all parts of the Galaxy sold their wares, from strange, pungent fruit, to spare parts and cobbled together machinery. He remembers the silhouettes of the fat trees against the slowly sinking sun, huge and red along the horizon, ceding the sky to two moons which charted a slow path across the star scattered black. 

They had stopped to refuel and collect supplies, rations needing to spread farther than expected, recruitment up following the genocide of the seat of the Republic. They had no expectation of official recruitment there, but when Poe found himself in a bar in a dark corner of the town, someone let his name slip, and a dozen or so people suddenly were looking him over with new interest. 

The girl had come in later, after people had gotten back to their own affairs, leaving him to drink in peace. She walked right up to him, and he noticed the slight stiffness of one of her legs. She leant up against the bar next to him and he looked at her before looking away. 

“You are Poe Dameron,” her voice was smooth and dark, and her expression something harder than solemn. “I want to fight with the Resistance. You will take me with you when you leave.”

He looked back at her, and saw the way her posture, though sure and strong, listed to one side, and a closer look at her face revealed a fine network of old scars near her temple and scattered across her left cheek. 

“Who says we’re taking new recruits,” he asked, not in the mood to entertain anyone else’s need.

“I didn’t say anything about looking for recruits,” she said, and something in her face was familiar to him, but it might have been the old grief that people who sought out the Resistance carried in their hearts, “I said you were taking _me_ with you.” 

Something in her eyes as she held his gaze with hers made it hard to swallow. Some people carried grief, but others were forged by the war that raged through the Galaxy, their hearts made over by violence and loss, and he knew that some people were soldiers before anything else, no matter what their official designation might be.

He nodded, part acknowledgement of her conviction, and part in acceptance of her pledge. They sat in silence for a long while, until Poe finished his drink, and when he stood, he told her the ship was just past the city limits, off the north-western quadrant, and leaving the next morning. 

They did not speak again.

* * *

 

Finn cannot take the staring any longer. He feels hunted, and it has been too long since that feeling was his constant companion. Even before his escape from the First Order, he was aware of the ways the captain and the others would look at him. He knew then that he was improperly formed, incomplete, and he tried to paper over his discrepancies, terrified of what might become of him.  

Watching villagers and his fellow Stormtroopers bleed out on the scorching sands of Rey's planet was not the first time he had felt that doubt. He was no stranger to the thought of running away, the pull of escape finally unbearable; Poe, merely a perfect opportunity. 

He paid in blood, and pain, and loss (no matter how his freedom, his time with Rey, or Poe's friendship tip the scales in favor of his gains). He will not have some new recruit destroy the warmth that has settled over his life. _His_ life. Not someone else's to command, not someone else's to dictate. He fought for all the selfish reasons he could think of; the opportunity to have just a little more of Rey's time, the hope that his actions would impress the galaxy's best pilot, the dream that bloodshed would wash the bitter taste of unfulfilled vengeance out of his mouth. 

Most of all, he is tired of not knowing. The facts of his life are simple: he was a Stormtrooper (made or stolen or plucked fully formed from a dream), as such the First Order trained him to fight and kill, but when thrust into battle he could do neither, and when a Resistance pilot was presented to him as an opportunity for escape, he took it. If he had a home world, it is long lost to him. If he had a mother, she would be a stranger. 

No, Finn has Rey and he has Poe, and the undeserved gifts of their affections, and he has the conviction that he will fight at their sides until the breath leaves his body; be it for the Resistance, the Empire, Kylo Ren himself, or not at all. But Rey is on the other side of the Galaxy, far beyond his reach, and Poe feels equally far away, never mind that Finn can reach out and touch him. The kiss and Poe’s early morning departure have left things uncertain, if no less warm, between them. Each night Finn finds himself looking for excuses to linger before he reluctantly makes his way back to the cold sheets of the bed in the infirmary, where he curls up, uneasy with the low buzz of insects from outside, the unfamiliar stillness of dirtside accommodations, and the silence of his privacy. 

This girl, she stares at him like he is a prize. At first he hoped Poe was right, despite his uneasiness, and her reasons were as innocent as prurient interest, like he claimed when Finn brought it up in the mess. But Finn has known many people in the short life catalogued in his memory, and some looks are capable of an evil all on their own. 

He makes himself scarce. He drags Poe into the corner of the eating hall when they meet for lunch. He asks the General for work that can be done inside, away from the prying eyes of the body of the Resistance, and so spends his afternoons sorting through boxes of old disk files, the bits and pieces of the old Republic, and the old Empire that have collected in the hands of the Resistance, brought as offerings from the thousands of people who have passed through their encampments over the years. He spends the evenings with Poe, doing the exercises the doctor has him assigned to do until they are no longer difficult, and putting in the work to try and regain the muscle tone he lost. Poe will join him, and the companionable silence of their hard breathing, sweating together in their thin shirts might be his favorite part of the day.

He manages to go a week and a half after the new recruits arrive without staying still long enough that the girl with the braids can approach him. When she finally corners him, Poe is standing behind her in the doorway, looking defiant and sad, and Finn can't quite tell if the tight feeling in his chest is betrayal or something far more bitter.

* * *

 

Poe asked around and finally got a name. _Gambhira._ He waits for a long while, watching her work around the camp, watching her watch Finn, and he cannot find evidence that she means the Resistance any harm, but he is not sure about the look in her eyes when she tracks Finn from across the room. It burns, it has some kinship to desire, but there is something cold hidden beneath it. Poe is no stranger to desire, he knows it burns bright, makes itself visible from across a room, because even when its flames are banked, it lights people up inside. The look in Gambhira's eyes is ancient, it carries the stain of old blood, and sickness of long-infected wounds.   

He is afraid that she knows; knows what Finn was, and that she is just biding her time. 

Ultimately, it is his time which runs out. 

The day before had been a long afternoon, and then an evening too short for one that ended long after the generators were turned off for the evening, and Poe finds himself reluctant to sleep. He and Finn stayed up late telling each other stories.

That night he dreams.

* * *

 

Poe watched the big, dark ships fill the sky. They were alien and terrifying, mountains landing on the dirt, the fat, short-limbed trees that dot the plains dwarfed by their impossible magnitude. He’d never seen them before, but they filled his mind with the sound of fear and his nostrils with the scent of death. He had never seen someone die, but he knew, deep down in his soul, somewhere primal, the putrid smell of these ships. 

Everyone rushed inside, but the bodies moved around him, no one managing to touch him as they pushed past him, and each other. Having watched everyone move inside, he turned back around and he found himself crouched, looking through a rough-hewn window out across the grasslands. A little girl was crouched next to him, she looked at him and her eyes were dark and fearful. She turned back to the window, and he followed her gaze where monsters came marching out of the ships. 

Hazy in the heat, they looked like angry spirits—white wavering figures with burning black eyes. Some far away part of him reminded him that these figures were men, but their expressions twisted as they moved past him, angry, blank, screaming, blank, blank, a terrifying kaleidoscope of pitch black eyes. They marched into the village and told everyone to go to the square. They knocked down doors and marched people out, dragged the unwilling, forced the able to carry out the old and the sick. Poe looked around frantically, knowing that he had to hide, to find somewhere away from their eyes which bled blackness, but there was nowhere. One of them saw the little girl, and pulled her out by the arm. Poe watched her helplessly, the way her arm stretched in its socket, twisted as she tried to pull away, but the white demon was too strong. He followed after her, afraid to let her out of his sight, the terror riding high in his chest that she would be swallowed up by ghosts, by the ships the second he could no longer see her. 

The ground slid nauseatingly under his feet, and they pushed the girl into the town square, Poe finding himself amongst the villagers where they were huddled at the far end, the demons in pairs in their matching white armor and expressionless faces stood at every road where it gave out into the square. Two of them moved aside while another pair pushed a woman and a boy into the ring. Poe watched a soundless tableau as the little girl with the braids pushed forward to try and reach them, but the villagers refused to part for her, keeping her trapped behind their bodies. The woman had a tight grip on the boy’s arm, Poe could see were the tendons in her hand pressed up against her skin. The boy looked like he was ready to fight, a stubborn set to his young mouth like he would stand up to anyone, even if it meant he would lose. Poe knew that his mother was always trying to keep him from getting into fights, but he could never bear the thought of a person hurting someone who couldn't defend themselves. Poe felt the panic at how this story played out, the way he might see the boy bleeding and still on the packed dirt. The fear warred with the fullness of his heart at the thought of this boy, already prepared to make sacrifices beyond his age. 

Poe's world spun uncomfortably, watching mother and son, but then the little girl was running towards them and Poe was, too. The woman grabbed the little girl’s arm. Her grip was so tight it hurt, fingers pressing into the girl's skin and Poe could feel them tight around his own wrist pulling the skin of their arms. The little girl tried to pull away, scared and confused, looking at her mother, who had never handled her so roughly before. But she pulled the girl close and Poe spun to see a new soldier, with the same black eyes, make his way into the square. He had a cape on his shoulders, and the other soldiers stood at the ready when he arrived, expectant. He walked, peering into the crowd, inspecting. He beckoned with a hand, and more soldiers made their way into the square. His voice was high and muffled, distorted from the masks they all wore, and Poe could feel the laughter inhis throat, a child's laughter drawn out when the monster under the bed has a head cold. But the voice echoed across the square: _All able bodied children over the age of 11 will step forward_. 

Poe shrank back trying to find room for himself in the little family, as the mother pulled the girl close, even though she wouldn't turn nine for another two season, but her son she tried to push behind her. He was 12, starting to show broad shoulders. No one sent their children forward. Another hand motion sent the soldiers into the crowd, some brandishing guns, some tasked with pulling children away from their parents. It became chaos, Poe could hear people screaming, the muffled shouts of the soldiers, and echoing in his head the wet thud of guns being used as bludgeons. In the space of a single slow breath, they pulled most of the children out of the crowd, Poe could see even though he was huddled in the back, with the little girl, her mother, her brother, and a few others. 

The soldier with the cape, the captain, pulled out a weapon and shot it into the sky. The sharp noise was followed by silence, Poe could not even hear his own breathing, and he felt the edge of panic that he’d gone deaf, would wake up deaf. But the muffled voice cut through the silence, _The children will step forward. The men will stand over there,_ he pointed with one hand, _And the women over there_ , he pointed with the other. For a moment the square was a tableau, artificially still and then the voice rolled like thunder through the crowd, _NOW_.

People scrambled, Poe felt his movement like the sickening lurch of a fighter with a shot out wing, the mother moved quickly, dragging the children with her, moving in the thick of the crowd. A small cluster of people stayed in the middle. One was the old herb woman, she was wrinkled and stooped, lopsided from the waist. She was wrapped in a green cloth going grey from dust and sunlight, and she had talismans and little jars around her neck. Poe could feel the calm and the strength that settled around her. She had two children clutched to her, orphans whose mothers died in childbirth, they lived with aunts or uncles, but she looked after them especially. Two soldiers in white stepped forward and pulled the children from her, her arms outstretched to them, and the soldier with the cape stepped forward and shot her in the head. The wound made a slick sound in the stifled silence that followed as the woman crumpled. Shandra, the girl, had her eyes fixed on the body, tears sliding down her cheeks, making paths in the dust that clung to her skin, silent, while the captain said, _I will not repeat myself._

Poe looked around wildly, terrified he had lost the girl and more importantly her brother although he didn’t know why this boy mattered so much. As he spun in dizzying circles everything blurred into color, he saw him. And suddenly the boy was Finn and he was also the boy except that Poe knew him. He looked at him and saw Finn’s face even though it should look ridiculous on the body of a child the whole image fit and Poe could not believe he did not see it except he had always known it. It had always been so. And the world caught up.

Suddenly there was a loud noise and it was like space engines in the atmosphere, like a crowded market, like a hundred people screaming, and the dust was flying up as people shuffled around. Finn and the girl and their mother were left exposed, and Poe could no get to them, and the soldiers pushed past him. Their mother was pushing them behind herself, she was strong and thin, but she was but one person, and the soldiers pulled her away from them. The boy—Finn—stepped forward in front of his sister, reaching for his mother. His face was set in determination, and the little girl was clutching the back of his tunic, chanting, “Ziza, Ziza, no, Ziza,” and one of the soldier threw their mother to the ground. The little girl dived for her, coming in close, and when Ziza—Finn—the boy put up his hands to fight them, one of the soldiers hit him across the face with the butt of his gun, in the same second Poe saw the other soldier, face twisted into some kind of white demon, fire his blaster, and the girl was crying, tears making lines through where dirt and rocks were sticking to the bloody pockmarks in her face, while half of her mother’s head was missing and the blood was pooling on the dirt. Poe’s body was cold and he felt sick, but he was suddenly sure he was on the other side of the galaxy, without being able to tear his eyes away.

Poe felt his skin pull tight; half a step outside himself, aware of the tightness in his chest, the way his face showed his anguish. There he was—  _Finn—_  a boy the spitting image of the man— pulled away by white, eyeless ghosts, his face already starting to show its bruises. Finn— Ziza— yelling soundlessly, his voice echoing somewhere out on the planes, away from Poe’s ears, reaching out, fighting to pull away, toward the crumpled form of the little girl with the braids. 

When he wakes Poe is cold. The dream is just that, a dream, but the story is one he has heard a thousand times, seen it play out a few hundred more, he has seen the looks on the faces of the people left behind. The hollow-eyed children who have forgotten how to play anything but war, the children who don’t speak, the villages devoid of men beyond the oldest and the weakest, the mothers who cannot be coaxed to work or eat are his constant companions when he finds himself alone in the dark. 

He has met with village elders, their faces lined with memories of a war that won’t end, who know that the story does not need repeating, that it is echoed across the many stars of the galaxy, that this is not the first time, nor the last. 

Poe knows that no one comes to fight for the Resistance for the glory or the adventure, he knows that those same hollow-eyed children grow up, with pieces of themselves forever locked away by grief, and find their way across the galaxy hoping that even if their loved ones are gone, they might take a few of those responsible with them as they leave this world to join those they have mourned in life. 

Poe knows the story does not need repeating, having made the journey himself.

His mouth is dry, although he can still taste blood and dirt, and he feels his gorge rise up, but he takes a few shaking breaths. Staring at the ceiling, he does not sleep again as he waits for daybreak.

* * *

 

The morning finds him restless and unrested, so he keeps himself to himself, working in the yard.

Gambhira finds him bent over, head inside the control panel of a dart, and when he feels someone standing behind him, the interruption of the hot afternoon sun on his back makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, he knows to expect her. He pulls himself out and turns, spine nevertheless turning to ice when he sees her standing there with her listing stance, looking at him. He leans back against the ship, feigning relaxation, but he can see from the look in her eyes, that the coiled tension in his muscles is all too visible. 

"I need to speak to him," she says. Her voice is still dark and smooth. Her approach is just as direct as the last time, her steel grief still unyielding, and Poe is afraid that he will tell her what she wants to know, again.

"Why?" he asks, no use in feigning ignorance. They have been circling each other for over a week.

"Because I thought he was lost to me, dead, for all these years. I mourned him. And I step off your ship, and there he is," her face twists, her expression pulling to the side, the scars in her cheek dimpling, grief wars with wonderment, but together they look remarkably like rage. 

"Who is he to you?" Poe hopes he finds the cool of the fearless Resistance pilot, because his lungs feel tight with the possibility that this woman has the power to take Finn from him, and he cannot bear the thought of losing his friend to the past.

She looks him straight in the eye, and he remembers his thought when he first saw her, that some people are made over as soldiers, and that they carry battle in their wounded hearts. 

“I was a little girl when the First Order came to my planet. And this man you call Finn, he is my brother. The stormtroopers killed my mother and took Ziza away. I never expected to see him again. _You_ will not keep him from me.”

Gambhira looks at him, and Poe can feel an echo of her loss in himself. He knows his face is impassive, just as he knows that she wants neither his pity nor his grief. Children left behind without mothers, who have watched their homes stripped bare of love and safety, do not have use for sympathy. The adults those children become are marked by wounds that will never heal, with a grief that will not fade. He holds her gaze. Her eyes burn into his. Like the time before, he nods.

"He's not the brother you remember," he says, though he knows she does not care, "Come with me."

* * *

 

 Finn doesn’t know what to make of Poe and the woman who stares at him standing in front of him, on the other side of Poe’s own door. He cannot close it, because, no matter how at home he feels within these walls, it is not his home to shut people out of. 

Poe’s eyes are dark and sad in a way that Finn hasn’t seen since the last time the pilot brought him news he didn’t know how to deliver. Like the recruitment mission, Finn does not know what changes, what new and unknown dangers lurk on the other side of this moment.

Poe takes a deep breath, drawing himself up, shoulders back, and Finn remembers that his friend has been fighting a war for the better part of a decade. 

While Poe steps forward and says in a firm voice, “Finn, this is Gambhira,” Finn takes the time to look at the woman standing next to Poe. Seeing her close, he sees the fine scars pockmarking the side of her face. They are patches of light scar tissue against the soft dark of her skin. Her mouth is firm and full. The lines of her brow and the corners of her mouth show a tendency towards frowning and despite the elegant, familiar arches of her eyebrows, he hesitates to look at the eyes that sit beneath them. 

When he finally meets her eyes, they are dark and familiar and so cold. The anger and the pain there fill him with fear. He thinks she must know who he is, what he is–– no, what he _was_. He doesn’t know if he stands like a Stormtrooper, if he walks like one, if there is something about him that tipped her off. If Poe has brought her here, he must not think she is a danger. But as much as Finn loves Poe (and it’s terrible that this is the first time he is thinking it, under this circumstance), he isn’t entirely sure he trusts the pilot to make the right call here. Poe has given his life and his soul over to the Resistance, and Finn knows he is allowed to remain by the grace of that alone.

“Finn,” the woman says, and the name sounds like a stone in her mouth. “No, that is not how I know him,” she says, cutting her gaze over to Poe.

Finn frowns. She knows him?

“He is Ziza,” she says, in her quiet, steely voice. She looks back at him, regal, and expectant. 

Finn stands in the doorway, he looks from the woman, Gambhira, to Poe. 

Finn is looking at Poe, and thinks he is the only one to see the flash of relief that flits across the pilot’s face. In the moment of awkward silence which follows Gambhira’s pronouncement, tension seems to drain out of the pilot. From the corner of his eye, Finn sees a stricken stillness hit Gambhira’s face, turning to her, he sees her set her jaw, pulling at the skin of her cheek, making the scars dimple and appear more pronounced. There is a look in her eyes, and Finn thinks that, perhaps, if she were someone else, she might have started to cry.

Her voice is rough and quiet when she says, “He is Ziza, my brother.”

Finn steps aside and makes space for both Poe and Gambhira to enter the tiny room behind him.

* * *

 

 

**iv. we carry our own loneliness with us**

 

After the meeting with Ghambira, Poe knows that they have to make a change. The Resistance camp is oppressive in the wake of old tragedy. There is nothing that can be done to make Finn and his sister family again. They are strangers now.  

The failed reunion serves only as a reminder that Finn is a stranger to everyone, here and elsewhere in the Galaxy, except for to Poe and to Rey. But it’s not until a slow day in the shipyard that the solution presents itself to the Resistance pilot. He finishes his work on the fleet and finds that he has the rest of the afternoon to himself. He wanders over to his ship: the Purple Queen, as he’s taken to thinking of her since the night he spent showing her off to Finn. 

She’s clean outside, for which Poe knows he has Finn to thank. In the two weeks he was gone, Finn worked hard to make his ship worthy of her title, and she shines. He hits the latch and the back opens for him; the inside of his ship is perfect. He is flabbergasted. 

Poe knew Finn had washed the outside of the ship, but the _inside_ gleams. The dust and grit and time which had coated every surface, from floor to ceiling has been wiped away. Poe steps through into the gleaming, strange topography of his own ship in wonderment. He remembers when he was rewiring her, the way his screwdrivers would sink through a layer of grime before reaching the walls when he pried open panels and popped open covers to get to his beauty’s electric blood vessels. 

But now he trails his fingers along the wall as he walks towards the cockpit, disbelieving. Instead of his fingers coming away with dirt, his fingers leave streaks behind on the wall. He immediately pulls them away, guilty. But he can feel the smile bunching his cheeks, there is a warmth in the pit of his stomach making him giddy.

As he walks along the center corridor, he is greeted with unexpected joys; the curtains to separate off the bunks from the quasi-seating area have been replaced, no longer decaying and caked in cargo dust, and he begins to realize the extent of the project which Finn undertook in his absence. Poe realizes that his fearless ex-stormtrooper must have joined the spacemen in the mess during the afternoons and learned how to make the neat rows of stitches which are now on display for anyone in the ship to see. He takes his time as he examines the sleeping pallets, and the cockpit seats to admire Finn’s needlework, appreciating the time and effort it must have taken his friend, whose hands are more used to guns and phaser canons than the detail work of homemaking. 

Finn didn’t have the luxury of yards of matching fabric, but he cleaved as close as possible to a color scheme, made up of blacks, and deep blues, and royal purples, and the occasional emerald accent, matching the outside of the ship. Poe has watched Resistance fighters and families pick through the scraps, assembling patchwork clothes and soft furnishings out of the remnants which come by space freighter to the camp. Some take the time to try and re-dye the cloth, but in the two weeks that Poe was gone, Finn would not have had the opportunity. It means that his friend must have spent precious, careful hours combing through the cloth on hand to find the pieces to put this all together. 

He feels overcome by the warmth singing through his blood; making his skin burn hot and wild, his face flushing and something rising alarmingly behind his eyes in the cool dark of his ship. A sudden _thunk_ behind him startles him out of the reverie.

* * *

 

 Finn wanders out to the shipyard, of half a mind to look for Poe, but not entirely committed to the course of action. His time at the Resistance camp has taught him the joy of uncertainty; learning to live with the knowledge that his time is his own, and, beyond his responsibility to contribute to the running of the camp, he is allowed to decide for himself (or not) what he wishes to do. 

But as he looks out across the flattened dirt of the yard, from the hill near the infirmary, he sees that the back of Poe’s purple ship is open. Suddenly, anxiety grips him that someone has gone snooping in what he has understood to be the pilot’s domain, as violating as poking through his room without invitation while he’s gone. 

The sight of the black opening at the back of the ship has him moving down towards the shipyard before he is aware of it. His blood is running hot, and Finn suddenly remembers the way he felt, hiding behind his stormtrooper mask leading Poe Dameron, Resistance Captain and pilot extraordinaire, towards the shuttle bay during their escape from the First Order. The same momentum––driven by the way the light catches on Poe’s face, the fierce set of the pilot’s mouth in the face of danger––is pulling him down the hill, despite the way his breath still catches in his chest when he runs, and the terror of confrontation––knowing he is likely unprepared to overcome whomever he finds in his path––are lighting him up inside.

Finn is suddenly aware of himself when he reaches Poe’s ship, the sound his boots make against the ramp to the tiny airlock/cargo bay echoes through the dark hall of the ship; his eyes struggle to adjust to the pitch dark inside against the blinding glare of the sunlight outside. He steels himself and ducks his chin while he presses on, navigating by feel, remembering the inclines, declines, and little steps of her topography from his restoration efforts. 

Instead of the intruder he expects, a pale face, flushed and framed with dark curls, catches the light streaming in from behind him, and Finn makes out Poe’s dark eyes, wide and glossy. The pilot is blinking rapidly, face tilted down and away, and Finn steps in close, letting his shadow fall across his friend’s face.

He looks for words, something that says, “I hope you like it” and “I didn’t want to overstep” and “Is this okay?” but he can’t find them, and so he stays silent, watching Poe’s face, in profile. His eyes are closed against something, and emotions cross his face in fleeting crinkles of eyebrow and twists of mouth. All too quickly, he is taking a deep breath and meeting Finn’s eyes, his cheeks still dark and his eyes slightly too bright, but he’s smiling, and Finn can’t help but smile back.

“How’d you know I was here?” Poe asks, his eyebrows ticking closer together in curiosity.

“I didn’t,” Finn replies, “I thought someone was snooping around your ship.”

Poe laughs, “That’s why you looked ready to hit someone when you came in. Coming to the Purple Queen’s defense!” 

Finn hasn’t heard the name before but it makes something spark in his chest, a sudden sense-memory of that night walk from the infirmary to Poe’s ship. 

The pilot’s face is suddenly somber, and Finn’s spine stiffens in response, ready for the reprimand for overstepping his welcome when he combed over the inside of the ship, regardless of his good intentions.

“Finn,” and Poe’s voice is deep and quiet and serious, and Finn can’t help but cast his eyes away from his friend’s face, unwilling to see his expression as he tells him off.

“Finn, this is amazing,” and he looks up, Poe’s face is full of wonderment, “I never imagined she could look this beautiful. I figured I’d be shot down before she was ever space worthy.”

The image of Poe’s dart spiralling out of the sky trailing smoke makes his heart clench, chest tight and the air thin around him. The possibility of his dart exploding, silent and fiery in the deep dark of space, like the seat of the Republic, nothing left to recover, makes Finn feel like his heart is going to explode, terror and a premonition of grief covering his skin in pinpricks. 

Finn closes his eyes against the sensation and takes a breath and when he opens them again, Poe is standing before him, close, hands lightly holding his biceps, running down to cup his elbows and drawing him in while his own hands come up to grip the pilot by the shoulders and then they’re embracing, holding each other close, pressed up full length, breathing into each other’s necks, legs slotted together. 

“Thank you, Finn,” Poe says in a wet breath, lips moving against Finn’s neck, “For making our ship ready.” 

And Finn’s hands spasm and he’s pulling Poe into him with all his strength, unsure he’ll ever be able to let go.

* * *

From there suddenly everything begins to happen very quickly. 

Finn realizes that they are going to leave the Resistance camp, but he leaves the details of the negotiation to Poe. The pilot has the kind of sway in the camp which means he’s actually indispensable, but he doesn’t let that hold him back. 

His case is fairly simple: it is not enough that they have sent Rey and Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon in search of Luke Skywalker.It is necessary to follow them and determine whether or not they have found him. It has been nearly three months since Rey left and they haven’t received so much as a message or word of mouth update about what progress she and Han’s right hand wookie may or may have not made. 

_This is good_ , Poe argues to the General and her advisors. It means that it is unlikely something bad has happened to them. There has been no word of major capture by the First Order and no word that parts belonging to the Falcon have been seen on the market or any other such little detail which, in the past, has found its way to the Resistance leaders as the last sign of this or that fighter or operative. 

Radio silence doesn’t mean they haven’t run into trouble, however. Poe has criss-crossed this Galaxy before and he knows that there are all kinds of trouble someone can get into that leave behind no real trace, that don’t come up as out of the ordinary. People get lost in the Galaxy, and the best way to make sure they don’t disappear is to find them. 

Eventually,the General gives Poe her blessing, and he and Finn start to prepare for their journey.

* * *

 

** 1 **

 

Finn’s mouth feels dry as they step out into the cold desert night on the planet where Poe made them stop to stretch their legs and visit this particular marvel of the Galaxy. The northern hemisphere of the planet spends half its solar orbit in darkness. It's a short time, by comparison to other planets, but longer than Finn would be comfortable with. The weather is just a little cooler than is comfortable even with Poe's old pilot jacket on. 

But they’ve been sitting in the stifling cantina for the last several hours. The other half of the year the northern hemisphere is exposed to sunlight for the entire day. All the buildings are underground to escape the weather extremes, but especially the hot, bright, nonstop summer. The big low tavern room was hot with the combined breaths of all the beings collected there, despite the hatch being open to the night. The air was hazy with pipe smoke and the aroma of stink leaf. Poe leaned in close to him to tell him about the other off worlders drinking around them. 

The bar served a dry, but aromatic, fermented drink. It had a pale yellow-green color. It was cool in Finn's mouth, warm as it hit his stomach and left his throat feeling dry and eager for another sip. It was unlike anything Finn has ever had before, with the First Order. 

But now the world is a half step out of sync, or maybe he’s a half step out of sync with the world, or maybe he’s just dreaming the whole thing. But Finn can feel the warmth where Poe’s arm is pressed against his back, where his hand is stretched to try and wrap around his hip, where the pilot is leaning in close, curls near his face, eyes soft and slow. Finn feels safe and warm, despite the cold of the air and the strange shapes of the stars overhead. 

As they stand, half undressed in front of the bed, Finn feels some sentiment, some words take shape on his tongue. 

“We never used to drink like that, with the First Order,” he says even though he isn’t entirely sure why.

“They kept everyone sober?” Poe asks, surprised.

“No,” Finn replies, thoughtful, “Drinking was never reprimanded when we had downtime. There was always someone with some liquor stashed away, which would inevitably get passed around. It was just… Different.”

Finn can feel Poe looking at him, that thoughtful, shrewd look in his eye that says he’s on the verge of understanding what Finn is trying to say.

“It was just… Mean, I guess?” Finn hazards. “It ended with people getting into fights more often than not. What we did this afternoon, or in that cantina before… It was just warm and friendly and we were there together, you know? On the First Order ship, it was always messy and loud when people started drinking. It was one of the only things you could do to relax, but it never felt like anyone relaxed. Everyone would just drink until they passed out.”

Finn dares to glance at Poe and he sees the ripple which passes over his face which Finn has come to know means understanding. 

When he speaks, Poe’s voice is quiet. 

“People drink for a lot of reasons. What we’re doing, we’re friends, together, on a grand adventure,” at that, his voice ticked up in a droll smile, “We are, like you said, we’re together. But people drink to forget. You see it with the spacers, and some of the old Resistance fighters, and some of the recruits… They drink because whatever is in their head is too big and too loud for them to out from under it. They drink to forget and they get mean because some things… Some things there is no forgetting.”

Finn doesn’t have anything to say to that, so they’re silent. But when they are lying on the narrow pallet, the ship dark and quiet around them, Poe fits himself up against Finn’s back, his knees tight against the soft part of Finn’s legs, arm across his waist, and their breathing slowly matched. And Finn falls asleep, not entirely sure where he ends and Poe begins.

* * *

 

** 2 **

 

Poe brings them down on the flattened earth, the only spot that’s clear of trees for what seems like the entire continent. He can’t keep himself from watching Finn’s face with excitement as he takes in the lush greens of the planet, the way the air is thick with suspended water droplets and the condensation gathers on the leaves and drips in big fat drops onto the ones below until it feels like it is always raining in the lower forest.  

The First Order cares little for the forest planets, tangled with vines, humid, and teeming with life, they are difficult to land ships on and even harder to conquer. The forests have too much of everything: fruits, animals, natives, and even settlers from other planets come to the forest to build new lives. 

“Be careful,” Poe tells his friend, “This is the kind of place you can drown if you stand outside with your mouth open.” 

Finn gives him an incredulous look, and Poe can’t keep himself from laughing. Finn just raises an eyebrow at him and then heads back into their sleeping quarters to grab his jacket, shaking his head all the while.

But neither the lush green of the planet nor its relative freedom compared to elsewhere in the Galaxy are the reason that Poe brought them down here. Instead, as they leave the ship behind and head into the always surprisingly sparse undergrowth underneath the great big trees and their accompanying vines, he double checks his bearings and sets them off at a decent pace. 

It’s not too long before they come to a massive clearing, entirely enclosed within the forest, the ancient, leafy bows curved together over head into the majestic heights, a natural cathedral, and a sanctuary. Low, moss covered dwellings, nearly blending into the green twilight of the forest fill the space. Some climb up a few stories, little signs hanging off their walls, curtains fluttering in windows. 

Poe watches Finn’s face be overcome with wonder as he moves to the pilot’s side and takes in the settlement. These are the hidden gems of the Galaxy. Places which remain beyond the reach of the power brokers who are constantly vying for control. 

After letting Finn take it all in, rain drops falling soft and fat on his forehead and cheeks, Poe grabs him by the arm and pulls him along the main boulevard before taking them down a smaller parkway, and then into a twisting warren of alleys. Finally, he stops before a squat building where warm yellow light peaks around the edges of the curtains in the windows and an illegible sign squeaks in the light breeze. 

Pushing the old wooden door open, they step, one after the other, into a room bathed in warm light from innumerable candles dripping on every hard surface in the place. Low seats are carved into the walls and low tables are scattered throughout the small room. Every surface which doesn’t have a candle on it is covered in rugs and pillows. 

In the back corner, two people with light blue skin and more joints than either Finn or Poe has look up at them briefly when they walk in but quickly resume their conversation in a light chatter that is alien to both of them. Poe leads Finn to the opposite corner, which is a little further back, a little further from the reach of the candles’ glow. They sit down close to each other, side by side on a low pile of carpets, a mess of soft fibres in red, gold, shot through with green. Pillows are piled behind them, some with tassels, some with three corners, some with five, some with more, two cylindrical pillows fit right into the smalls of their backs. 

An old crone comes out of the back, she appears seemingly from thin air and walks over, her eyes are deep set and so light the iris is almost indiscernible from the whites around them. Her skin is wrinkles and an even brown color which gives away her origins on some other planet. There is no menu, and Finn looks at the woman with a stoic expression that betrays his unease and confusion to Poe. The pilot nods at the woman and smiles before ordering two cups of her special brew. 

“Just wait, Finn,” Poe says as the woman disappears behind a curtain that blends seamlessly into the rugs which adorn the walls. “What you’re about to taste might be the best thing in the entire Galaxy.”

Only a little while later, while Finn has tried to take in all the patterns of the all the rugs and pillows around them, the woman reappears bearing a metal tray, hand worked so that the candle light catches everywhere on its mismatched flattened surface, with two reasonably large cups set upon it, steam rising from the liquid held within them. 

When she puts them down before them, Poe watches his friend peer into the cup. His skin looks like it’s been burnished with gold in the firelight, warm tones rising to the surface of his cheeks and nose and forehead where they’re gilded in candlelight. He picks up his own cup, one hand curled around and the other cupped underneath and brings it to his face so he can inhale deeply over it. 

The liquid inside is a brown so pale it looks white and it has a thick consistency. It gives off a light sweet smell and it reminds him of home. The milky, sap sweetened drink isn’t quite like his mother’s but it has the same nutty notes that hers used to have, and the creaminess coats his tongue, while it warms him from the inside, chasing away the chill from the rainy outside, now a mere murmur of raindrops on the thin metal roof. He closes his eyes and chases the flavor of the first sip where it lingers on his lips. 

When he opens his eyes, it’s to find Finn staring at him, hands holding his own cup in a loose approximation of Poe’s own hold. 

“Try it,” Poe urges.

Finn brings the cup gingerly to his lips and pours the liquid carefully into his mouth. He makes a little hiss when it’s hotter than he expects, but it turns into a drawn in breath as he closes his eyes and savors the flavor of the drink in his mouth. 

“It’s not quite like my mother’s recipe, but it’s the closest I’ve found to it in the Galaxy,” Poe tells him. Finn shoots him an unreadable look, with dark eyes. They don’t say much while they sit there savoring their drinks, but Finn presses a little closer on the couch, touching from lip to knee, elbows pulled in tight to avoid prodding each other in the ribs. It’s the first time Poe hasn’t quite felt like the drink will make him cry since he tried it all those years ago, after leaving home.

* * *

 

** 3 **

 

Every cantina in the Galaxy could be interchanged, in Poe’s opinion, without anyone really taking any notice. Sure, the home planets of the patrons would likely be slightly different. But they all feel the same kind of gritty and are all on the edge of violence. Too much to drink and too much money changing hands for them to be anything but dangerous. 

Nonetheless, the way Finn’s eyes get sort of unfocused and he way he leans into Poe when they’ve been sitting in any given drinking establishment for more than an hour makes it tough for Poe to resist bringing his friend to the spots he used to haunt before he joined the Resistance. 

Finn is more cleared eyed here than he has been in other cantinas on other planets, however. He’s still leaning into Poe but the shape of him is run through with tension. Poe brings himself closer, and tries to let his friend know that whatever it is they’re in it together, using only his skin. 

He’s still not sure that it works, but Finn takes a slug of the drink in front of him, and wipes his mouth with the back of his thumb. He pulls back far enough to fix Poe with a look, something intense and with intention, though Poe isn’t quite sure he knows what it means. (He hopes, though. And the heat that seems to always run under his skin flares to life and he _hopes_ he knows what it means.)

Poe finds himself frozen while Finn gets up from his stool at the back corner of the bar, where they found refuge in the shadows, away from any eyes which might recognize them. He pulls himself together, finishing his own drink and making off in the direction he saw Finn disappear in, throwing on his jacket while he goes. 

He finds him again when they’re outside, where light is creeping over the horizon, and the stars are disappearing from the hazy sky. He walks over to Finn, who doesn’t let him do more than open his mouth, before he’s pushed him against the wall, and sealed their mouths together. 

The kiss is wet and eager and Finn slots their legs together while Poe scrambles to get his bearings; his hands find their way to Finn’s hips, pulling him in close to feel the shape of him, everywhere. Finn’s hands are around his face, one moving down to grip the back of his neck, the other with the thumb resting along his cheekbone, his stubble catching on Finn’s palm. They stay pressed together, kissing for a hot moment, before Poe hauls Finn in even closer, rocking their hips together. 

From there time blurs into a syrupy suspension of sensations. Poe is aware of the length of Finn pressed into the dip of his pelvis, the little hitching motions, the little thrust and slide, moving them together. Finn gives up on kissing him on the mouth and instead leans full into him and lets his mouth move from lips to ear lobe, until he’s panting against the pilot’s neck and his breaths run hot and damp across Poe’s skin making him shiver and bring one of his hands up to cradle the back of Finn’s head. At some point, the damp friction of their clothes is too much, and they manage to fumble their pants open and press skin to skin, hands on each other, strokes sharp and stifled by their bodies, until they make a mess of themselves, Finn collapsing on Poe who collapses in turn into the wall at his back. 

They stand there under the red light of the dawn, panting and close, until Poe presses another deep kiss to Finn’s lips and they tidy themselves up to get back to their ship.

* * *

 

** 4 **

 

The thin, rag stuffed mattress they sleep on is objectively terrible. Finn did what he could to shred the cloth scraps small enough that they might spread evenly, but they still bunch up and create little balls and lumps that dig into sleeping muscles and have them waking with aches and pains. 

Finn tells Poe about the rodents that were living in the old mattress and ridiculous fond look passes over Poe’s face when Finn tells him that he hopes they’re doing okay, and found a good place to live in the grass beyond the Resistance shipyard. 

But Finn loves the lumpy mattress and the thin sheets and the way there is never a comfortable position to lie in on the entire thing, because it’s always too hot and misshapen and scratchy. Because as he’s trying to find the least uncomfortable position to lie in, he’ll end up with his face pressed half into the pillow and suddenly realize that it smells like Poe––the warm salty musk of his skin, the dusky smell of his hair. He’ll press a little closer to it, until his own breath has chased the scent away. 

His favorite is when they’ve both stayed up too long together, and some time after Poe has sent him to bed, he will decide that the flight plan doesn’t need his direct supervision and he’ll set the autopilot and crawl onto the other side of the mattress and accidentally nudge Finn into wakefulness. 

Finn will make some room, scootching over so that Poe will have space enough to lie down and stretch out a bit. But Poe will make a grumbly noise and kick the sheet off them after having squirmed his way underneath it, instead he presses up close to Finn, pushing his face into all of Finn’s soft parts; his neck, his side, wherever he finds skin and space. 

They’ll end up curled together, limbs half on top of each other, a tangle of bodies like small mammals. Finn always finds himself slightly overheated and sweating, but the feel of someone else pressed close and warm and friendly against him is the greatest barrier against the endless dark of the Galaxy. 

Outside their bed the First Order is waiting, the interminable distances between the stars, between him and Rey and everyone else fade away and Finn is only aware of the feeling of Poe’s warm breath on his skin and the heat of him along his side, and the way Poe’s calloused fingers feel where they stroke soft against whatever bit of skin they’ve managed to find.

* * *

 

** 5 **

 

They’re taking off from the planet as it turns its evening moves into nighttime. Finn can imagine the Purple Queen rising up until she starts to fade into the darkening sky, her hull the same kind of dark as the clouds slowly being divested of sunlight. They slept the day away and now he is sitting next to Poe in the cockpit, moving in tandem to bring their ship off the ground and take flight. 

They don’t speak except to relay headings and flight details to each other. Even that is much less frequent than it was at the beginning of their journey, takeoff and landing being like a dance in which they have both come to know all the steps. 

Finn is pleasantly exhausted from their time on the planet, they walked around and took in the planet's natural beauty; the streams and mountains which rise up and drop away from the plateau which holds the colony settlement they were stopped in. The steppes stretched away in a grassy ocean until it hit the cliffs of the mountains on the horizon. Little rodents rustled in the grass on the edges of the settlement. The mines that sustained the locals were cut into the cliffside where the plateau dropped off into a sudden ravine, mountains rising up on the other side. 

After their time outside, as the sun moved past mid-morning and into high noon, beating down hot and dry on the backs of their necks, they moved inside to the local watering hole. They ate a lunch made of dough stuffed with some kind of tough, slow roasted meat, probably the very same rodents Finn had heard in the grass. It was packed in with a thick, slightly sweet sauce and little dried berries, as well as something that might have been a root with a sharper flavor to add a dash of spice. It was delicious and Finn found himself licking his fingers clean of the dark, syrupy sauce that had gotten away from him as he ate the roll. 

They had little cups of the local alcohol, distilled from dark berries that grew on bushes which littered the grassy plateau. The barkeep brought them a clear, thin necked bottle of the stuff, and set it between them on their table. They sat there until the late afternoon drinking and talking to each other. Eventually, as the sun was reaching a blinding angle through the windows, and their bottle was running low, the barkeep came back out from behind the bar at the back of the room, the curtain separating the kitchen from the main space of the little tavern ruffling in the disrupted air of his passage.

He made his way to their table, little plates in each hand, and set down little clumped sweets before them.

“A local delicacy,” he said, “To ensure that your future travels are sweet.”

He cocked them an awkward smile, which cut into his dark, grizzled features, and made his way back into the kitchen.

Finn picked up his long stemmed spoon and pulled the plate closer to him. The sweet was a milled grain, carefully piled in the middle of the plate, it was lumpy and lightly toasted brown on the top, but when he cut into it with his utensil, it was soft and steaming in the center, and a brown so light it was nearly white. 

It was topped with the same berries that had complimented the meat in the dumpling, and the same color as the berry liqueur. There was a sauce drizzled over top the same dark color as the berries and the whole thing tasted soft and sweet and a little tart when he spooned it into his mouth. 

They were silent, catching each other’s eyes and smiling while they ate their desserts, and laughing a little as they did, until they were scraping their plates clean. 

After, they went back to the ship and slept for a few hours before settling in front to take off.

* * *

 

** 6 **

 

Poe sets them down on the planet, the packed earth of the informal dockyard nonetheless gives up a sigh of dirt and dust which clouds around the base of the ship and partially obscures their view of the other ships crowded around them. The ships are a motley combination of trawlers, scavengers, transport, long haul shipping, and even a few more personal crafts like the Purple Queen. 

The sun is setting, shimmering along the horizon as the heat of the day rises off the ground. It’ll be hot until long after the sun has disappeared from the sky, the desert ground giving off the heat of the nearby star for hours into the night. During the daytime, it’s practically impossible to be outside under the sun’s punishing radiance.

“We’re here for the night market,” Poe tells Finn. 

Finn raises an eyebrow at him.

“Well, we need something fresh to eat. Our supplies from camp are slowly dwindling, and this is one of the most varied and well stocked markets in the entire inner Galaxy,” Poe says. As Finn’s dark eyes soften he marvels at the trust his friend has placed in him. Not only as a pilot and navigator, but to reunite him with his friend and to show him the Galaxy on the way. 

Finally the sun sinks beyond the edge of the horizon, suddenly slipping out of view as all suns always seem to do. Hatches and doorways start opening around them and Poe hops up and heads to the back of their ship to hit the button on their own airlock. 

Finn follows closely behind him as he weaves his way through the mass of ships, many of which had seemed large from the inside of their own craft, but which now all loom over them, casting shadows across them regardless of where they walk. Suddenly, from beyond the ships, hard packed dirt walls rise up seemingly impenetrable. But when they clear the last haphazard row of ships, all of them smaller, the walls are broken up by little streets and alleyways. Many of the buildings meet and become one above the heads of pedestrians walking below. Poe reaches out a hand, grabbing one of Finn’s, leading him while his friend looks up and around, taking in the strange architecture and the colorful clothes draped between the buildings and stretched out as awnings where there is a break in the arching buildings overhead. 

The streets are quickly choked with bodies of all shapes, sizes, and species. What would normally have been fair-sized avenues are made nearly single file by the stands crowding along either side, some grow out of walls and storefronts, all hemmed in by the buildings and pressed close together, jostle each other and jockey for space. 

Some merchants are unravelling the cloths that had been wrapped around their heads and bodies to ward off the sun, others are winding new layers around themselves as the air temperature drops with the disappearance of the sun. The air is still hot and a little stifling on Finn and Poe’s all too human skin, sweat rising to glisten on their faces and under their arms and collecting at their lower backs. The occasional breeze is a relief, but Poe knows they will be grateful for their thick pilot’s jackets in a few hours. 

Finn is overwhelmed by the sights and sounds, the colors and the life of the wares. On offer is everything one could imagine finding in any corner of the Galaxy; animal, vegetable, and mineral. There are small insects in jars and large ones in cages; birds in various states of preparedness, from the whole and live, to dead, plucked, and beheaded. Fruits and vegetables in more colors and shapes than Finn has words for spill over the edges of the stalls, leaves and stalks and bunches hanging over the boxes they are sequestered in. There are rocks, crystals, and even machine parts spread on other tables. Jars and boxes of spices lined up in a kaleidoscope of dusty colors, give off a heady aroma which almost makes his head spin. 

Poe fights his way to various stalls, haggling with the merchants for their wares, turning to triumphantly to Finn after every transaction and distributing their increasing load of supplies between them. 

It takes them over an hour to make it all the way down to the final stalls which peter out along with most of the buildings, and then another hour at the least to make their way back again to the ship. By that time, the sun is well and truly gone from the sky and the air temperature is quickly going from cool to brisk. When they make it out to the dockyard, a stiff breeze whistles between the ships and various groups cluster next to their crafts and cruisers huddled around little fires. Poe doesn’t let them linger, afraid of drawing attention to them, and hustles them back to their ship.

Twenty minutes later, Finn is standing next to Poe, each of them with the breast of some bird sitting in front of them, damp from being washed, and a mess of dark spices and salt in front of them. Poe shows him how to rub the mix of spices into the meat. When each is covered to his satisfaction, he puts them to the side and brings out a variety of vegetables, which Finn has learned to identify by taste even if not always by name. Poe sets a pile before him and hands him one of their kitchen knives, where he sets to cleaning and dicing them like the pilot has shown him. 

Soon, the smell of spices has started to suffuse the ship. Finn sits, leaning against the small fold out table in their tiny mess kitchen, facing the stove top where Poe is standing over a simmering pot. He’s poured oil and thrown a variety of spices into the pot along with some of the spicy root vegetables that Finn knows are integral to the overall flavor of the dish. On the back burner a pot of grains sits in water, working up from a simmer to a boil. Finn knows that when it comes to a boil, Poe will turn it down as he does with the porridge grains they brought with them from the camp. 

He takes the pieces of spiced bird and puts them in along with a mash of golden fruit. He also adds the other root vegetables.

Next he pours in some creamy liquid—Finn is still uncertain whether it comes from a plant or an animal. That, too, slowly starts to simmer. Poe puts in a few more spices, and stirs it all together. Once everything is mixed in, he puts the top on the pot and comes to sit across from Finn at their little table.

While they wait for the food to be ready, they put all the rest of their purchases away in the little cabinets that make up the wall space of the tiny ship’s mess. They shove each other and laugh as they find a proper place for everything. 

By the time they finish, Poe has checked on their food a few times, stirring it occasionally, and with a final whiff of the steam rising off the top and a quick taste of the warm yellow sauce, he declares it ready. He pulls out their metal plates, they’re wide dishes with deep lips, somewhere between plates and bowls and appropriate for anything they could concoct on the stovetop. 

Poe scrapes out grains for both of them and then ladles out hearty servings of the delicious smelling thing that still bubbles quietly in its pot. 

He sets each of the dishes down before them and they dig in. 

The flavor is bright on Finn’s tongue, the temperature almost too hot for him to taste. The root vegetables are soft where his utensil digs into them and the meat falls apart under the tongs. He mixes the grains in with the sauce and closes his eyes to focus on the textures and flavors overwhelming his mouth. He lets out a little “mmm” of satisfaction. 

He opens his eyes to find Poe staring at him, eyes dark and steaming food seemingly forgotten before him. Finn feels his cheeks heat with embarrassment, and shoves away the thoughts which strive to compare the near spiritual experience of Poe’s cooking to the slop they served on the First Order ships; bland, often nearly colorless, with a dry bread which was often the highlight of the meal. 

Poe smiles at him, and asks, “Good?”

Finn nods enthusiastically, chewing his current mouthful, and after swallowing says, “It’s like you took the best things I’ve seen and felt since joining the Resistance and put them into something I can eat.” 

Poe laughs, baring his throat, and still chuckling digs into his own meal.

That night, as they curl up to sleep, the whole ship still smells of their meal and Finn falls asleep, pressed close Poe, with the colors of the night market swirling through his mind and the intoxicating scent of the spices and Poe’s skin filling his lungs. 

* * *

 

 

**v. we are the first in years** ****

Rey is startled to see the streak of a ship in the sky. She is with Luke Skywalker on the top of his mountain and the line of burning atmosphere which marks the ship’s trajectory is like a scar against the blue of the sky. It is quickly followed by a cold fear; the First Order has found them. Somehow, the Millennium Falcon has lead them to the Last Jedi, and soon everything will be over. 

But then, as the ship begins to circle back, closer now, out of the upper atmosphere, and moving at a slower speed, she realizes the small ship has nothing in common with any of the First Order ships, not their cruisers, nor their fighter jets. It is a small, dark ship which glows purple in the sun and is slowly circling their position before setting down near the Falcon. Chewy comes out, in full Wookie warrior form, weapon at the ready. Luke shoots her a sharp and dangerous look and she glares back at him. 

The back of the ship opens, and two figures walk out, laughing and looking up at them. One has a mess of dark curls, and the other is all dark skin, and before she’s aware of it, Rey has abandoned the Last Jedi and his mountain top and is running down to meet them. 

* * *

 

For a moment, Finn thinks maybe it's a dream. After all this time, their haphazard searching across the quadrant, finally seeing Rey again is something more than relief. The only moment of comparison he can think of is setting eyes on Poe again after thinking he was dead.   
  
He steps forward and she does the same and then in a flurry of movement he's got his arms around her, her lithe body pressed against his, warm and alive. They're both laughing, her voice loud where her mouth is pressed next to his ear.

They hold each other a long time, soaking each other in.

Eventually he can hear the voices around them, Poe introducing himself to Luke Skywalker, asking him where he's been. Finn can hear the note of anger, the ways in which Poe's doubts about Skywalker color his cadence. He wants to reach out and touch him, distract him from the heavy thoughts of the war that Finn knows are crowding Poe's head, but he can't quite bring himself to let go of Rey where she's finally back close enough for him to touch. He's afraid to let go, in case he forgets what this feels like, if he steps away from her again, she'll disappear leaving him chasing her across the Galaxy.

* * *

Rey watches Finn and Poe move around each other in the galley of the Falcon. Even as they make their halting progress, impeded by ignorance of where she and Luke and Chewy keep things, their motions make up a dance, even if the steps are new to them, they are synchronized.  

Poe doesn’t have to ask Finn to hand him the pot when he finds it in the cabinet on the far side of the room from the single heat ring, because Finn is already reaching across to set it in the pilot’s hands who smiles at him. Their moment of contact stretches like a kiss between their consciousnesses, their awareness of each other lighting up before they move away again to complete the next steps in preparing the ever so slightly fresher foods they’ve collected while trying to find the Millenium Falcon and its crew. 

Rey enjoys watching the two of them together. She likes the way Finn seems lighter than when she first met him. He laughs, but more than that, he seems more sure of himself, like he’s started to find his place in the world. While her heart swells to see him at ease, a needle of sadness pierces her heart when she thinks that he has accomplished all this without her, that she has not had the opportunity to see it. The worry that he has found his place in the Galaxy, somewhere far away from her, threads through her heart and she hopes that he will still find a place for her in this life he is building.

* * *

Finn's expression in the half light of her bunk is tortured. He's pressed up against her, hands big and warm on her lower back. He keeps pressing his lips against her skin, against her lips, like he can't help himself. Like he can only make sure she's still there if he can feel her skin get warm from his breath.   
  
"Poe is special to you," she says, thinking of the pilot's carefully blank expression as he looked back for a moment at the door, before making his way back to the little ship he and Finn had flown in on. He looked small, all of a sudden, a little figure against all the possibility of the black. For all the stars in the Galaxy, the spaces in between are long and dark.  
  
"I can't just leave him," Finn's voice is thick and muffled from where he's speaking into the crook of her neck. "I can't leave you, all the way out here with no way of knowing that you're alright. I can't let him fly back in that little ship all by himself. I can't leave _him_ all by himself."  
  
His breath stutters a bit on that last one, and Rey thinks she knows the feeling, imagining the people dearest to you alone, especially in all that empty space.  
  
As happy as she is to have Finn back where he can grab her hand, she can see that things in her absence have grown from the little seed she first saw between them. To have Finn by her side without Poe would be to have half the man, his soul torn in two, and the missing pieces always calling out to return.  
  
"It's okay," she says.  
  
Finn tightens his hold on her.  
  
"I can't choose," his voice is tight, “I’m supposed to choose and I can't."  
  
She grips his shoulders and shakes him lightly.  
  
"Why would you have to?"  
  
He pulls away and meets her eyes.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"The Falcon has enough space for all of us. We'll bring Luke back to the Resistance, and figure it out from there, together."  
  
His brow is furrowed, and she presses her fingers against it, trying to smooth the wrinkles out.  
  
"You don't have to choose. I would not ask you to choose between water or air," she feels a little hollow at the thought of Finn's focus not being fully fixed on her, "Maybe others live with a luxury of choice. But I think space is like the desert: you hold onto what you love, no matter what."  
  
She hears him take in a sharp breath, and wonders if they've never called it by that name. If Finn and Poe are tied together with friendship, the way she sees herself tied to Finn, a bond made up of two outstretched hands holding tightly to one another. 

* * *

A day later, when she is wandering the central corridor of the Falcon when she overhears Poe Dameron and Luke Skywalker talking in the galley. She doesn’t intend to eavesdrop, aware now, in a way she hadn’t been when she was alone, of the importance of privacy. But then she hears the Resistance pilot say her name and she can’t pull herself away from the edge of the open doorway. 

“Rey is strong,” Skywalker is saying in his low rasp. “To be able to use the force against Kylo Ren without any training is a sign of great power.”

“Will it be enough?” the pilot’s voice asks, his words are smooth and silky, something cold buried in them, as they never are when he is speaking to Finn.  

“We can never know what will be enough,” says the Jedi. “But I do know that if her spirit fails the way Kylo Ren’s did, all will be lost.”

The galley is silent, and Rey can hear the soft sound of clothing around breathing bodies. She scurries away, uncertain if either of them is leaving and unwilling to stay behind and be found out. 

She notices that after that, Poe Dameron looks at her differently. There is something warm in his eyes now, where before there was a slightly cool ambivalence. She will look up and see him watching her as she talks to Finn about the places he and the pilot visited on their way to her. Sometimes he’ll smile at her, rakish, and his eyes will dance from her to Finn and back again, warm and unreadable. 

* * *

She is awake after everyone else has gone to bed. She is sitting in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, a place that has begun to feel like home as she has spent more and more time on the ship. That is where Poe Dameron finds her. He’s barely more than a shadow in the darkness, the light coming off the consoles barely lighting him from below, and the star light coming through the windows not nearly enough to see clearly. But his eyes are shiny and she wonders what he is thinking.  

“So this is where you are,” he says. Rey looks up at him from where she is curled on the pilot’s chair and BB-8 trills quietly from somewhere below her feet. “I went by your bunk to check on Finn, but it was just him alone and I went looking for you. Should have come here first.”

She frowns, more in confusion than anything else. She feels like she should be uncomfortable with the thought of him going into her bunk in the dark of night. But she cannot think of a reason he should be kept from Finn. They have traveled together for weeks now, spent how long together at the Resistance camp, and the thought of them apart makes something inside her hurt. 

“I’m sorry he hasn’t been sleeping in his own bunk,” she offers. 

“Oh, don’t be,” Poe laughs, his teeth catching the meagre light and looking healthy and white. “The Purple Queen only has one bunk, so it’s pretty much always too warm when both of us are sleeping in it. He has to be more comfortable here with you.” 

Rey notices the slight ache that enters his words at the end. 

“Thank you,” she says, instead.

“What for?”

“For bringing him here,” she says, “For making sure he is safe. For showing him the Galaxy.”

Poe scoffs.

“For making him happy,” she adds, quietly. 

“No,” he replies. “Thank _you_.”

She thinks of how she left, Finn unconscious, her uncertain when he would wake up, if at all. She thinks of how far all of them have traveled, and her uncertainty that she would return. 

Poe, oblivious to her thoughts continues, “We had to come find you. Not for Resistance business, that was just an excuse. But Finn needed to be with you again. You are his closest friend, special to him, you know.”

Rey furrows her brows again.

“As are you,” she says.

Poe smiles in the darkness, and makes an infinitesimal shrug. He sits down in the copilot’s chair. The seat is a comfortable wookie shape and the chair dwarfs Poe. She realizes suddenly how small he is. The greatest pilot of the Resistance is a short man, with broad shoulders, and warm and inviting features. He is not imposing, despite the way his personality seems to fill the room. Rey finds herself wondering if his skin is as warm as his voice, his smile. The thought is strange, but not unpleasant.

They sit quietly together for a while, looking out the window at the star sprinkled sky. Rey’s skin prickles with the awareness of him next to her, and they occasionally dark glances, sideways at one another. Eventually, Poe adjusts his posture in his seat, and stretches out a hand to her, palm up stretched. She looks at it, at him, and sees that his face is solemn, but his eyes seek and catch her own. She reaches out her own hand and they hold each other, fingers intertwined, letting the warmth build between their palms. 

* * *

Two days later, Rey, Finn, and Poe have stayed up late, even though Chewy is in the cockpit keeping an eye on things. Eventually, Finn is yawning so often it’s interrupting the flow of their quiet conversation. Rey feels the soft tendrils of exhaustion cradling her bones, and she gets up, stretching out a hand to Finn she pulls him up as well. They take a few steps together towards the door, and Rey feels a little tension creep into her friend. She turns back, and looks at Poe where he remains seated watching them. She tips her head to the side and says, “Coming?” 

The tension in Finn increases, but he turns to look back as well and Poe has a blinding grin on his face as he pulls himself up to join them. They troop together down the corridor to the door of Rey’s bunk. There she hits the button to open it, she shoves Finn lightly towards the bed, because he’s swaying slightly on his feet. She goes over to the little sink in the corner and splashes water over her face, scrubbing it lightly and then rinsing out her mouth. She undoes the ties of her tunic and loosens and plaits her hair, carefully focusing on her nightly routine. 

When she’s done, she turns back around and sees that Finn and Poe are lying side by side on the bed, feet touching, but turned towards each other, Finn has his eyes closed, but seems to be murmuring quiet responses to Poe who is talking to him in a low voice, one arm curled beneath his head, the other on Finn’s arm, fingers absently caressing the skin of his arm. Rey feels cold in the slightly drafty room; not all the seals on the Millennium Falcon are as tight as they used to be. 

Without letting herself doubt, she walks towards the bed and from the bottom climbs on and over Poe’s legs where she settles herself between the two of them. She snuggles in and Finn puts his arm over her hips. Both of them are warm where they press along her sides, body heat leaking through their thin shirts and into her skin. 

Finn’s breathing quickly drops off into the deep, calm breaths of sleep. On her other side, Poe pushes his nose into her neck, the tip of it is cold, and slings a leg over one of hers. He tucks himself in around her, his hand never leaving Finn’s arm. Feeling warm, all the way through, for the first time in years, Rey falls asleep.

* * *

The next morning, Rey is warm when she wakes up, too warm. Her arms are sweaty and stick to the skin of the person lying next to her. She’s confused for a split second when she realizes that it’s not just Finn’s familiar warmth along her side, but that there is someone else in the bunk with them. 

She remembers the night before, the way that Poe tucked himself into her and she flushes suddenly. She can’t imagine what he was thinking when she did what she did. But she thinks about his lingering looks, and the way he watches her when she comes back from training with Skywalker and hopes she hasn’t misunderstood. 

As she settles into wakefulness, she realizes that Poe’s breathing is not the deep breath of sleep. She turns slightly to face him, and finds him watching her with half-lidded eyes. On his face is the lazy awareness of a pack leader surveying its domain. As she is aware of him, she knows he is aware of her, tuned to her signal, their breathing synchronizes and she moves into him. 

Slowly, he moves to meet her and somewhere between one moment and the next their lips meet. Rey doesn’t close her eyes all the way and looks at the out of focus stretch of his cheek and feels the huff of his breath as he laughs against her lips. Their mouths catch, and his are soft and chapped. She isn’t sure her own are much better, but she spends more time away from the recycled air of their two ships in the salty air. She pulls back a bit to wet her own lips and he tugs on her bottom lip as she moves away. 

He moves in against her, running his nose along her cheek. Prodding her face up with with little pushes of his nose and kissing the point of her jaw. A soft laugh escapes her, his nuzzling animal antics amusing her. The sound must rouse Finn because she hears a disgruntled noise behind her and Finn’s broad hand comes around to cup the front of her hip.

“No fair,” comes Finn’s voice, a deep rumble somewhere behind her ear and he kisses the side of her neck, before his face comes up and over her shoulder and he says, “Poe,” with a little whine in his voice and the pilot laughs and comes up to meet him, and Rey watches their mouths press together, Finn’s lips catching around Poe’s bottom lip, and then the slide of tongues, back and forth and they pull apart laughing. Finn ducks his head and pushes his nose into the knobs of her spine between her shoulder blades. 

Poe’s hand covers Finn’s on her hip and the warmth of the two of them makes her toes curl. 

* * *

They don’t quite arrive in the Falcon’s galley all at the same time, but it’s close enough. Luke watches them with a dark expression, while his face nonetheless remains blank. For the first time since they’ve arrived on this desolate outcropping of rock, the Jedi’s silent commentary on her life and her inexperience and whatever else it is he sees when he looks at her can’t touch Rey.  

They end up clustered around the end of the mess table with their bowls of porridge. Their feet are pressed together, out of sight. Finn is trying to keep his expression serious, the way it usually is, but he can’t help the way he looks at her and smiles, or the way he looks at Poe and something undeniable bubbles up in his gaze. Poe is flushed pink and he’s smile, talking and gesturing grandly, reaching out to touch them on the shoulders and hands and arms and anywhere he can reach. Rey isn’t sure what her own face is doing, but she suspects that it’s giving her away. 

Chewbacca comes back in from the cockpit, possibly drawn by their voices. He looks over at them, clustered together, smiling, and Rey stares back. She can’t keep the smile from her face, too happy, still, from their awakening. But she feels her heart race a little, for all that Luke Skywalker is incapable of touching her, Chewbacca is her traveling companion, and his opinion matters to her. But he makes a low, happy sounding growl in congratulation and gives her the Wookie equivalent of a smile. Rey flushes, and stretches out a hand to each of the men sitting by her side. 

* * *

“We have to return to the Resistance,” Ray tells Luke after they have cleared the table, and Finn and Poe have returned to the Purple Queen to assess their supplies. 

Luke looks at her and, as is too often his custom, grunts at her in acknowledgement that she spoke. 

“The General—your sister—is fighting a war,” she reminds him, voice hard. “She sent me to fetch you, not merely to learn from you, and moreover she is down her best pilot, as well.” 

“They know we’re alive,” Luke responds. “They could go back and tell her you are studying with me, here.”

Rey watches him. She imagines hugging Finn and Poe goodbye, sending them off, back to the Resistance, the uncertainty of their travel and the ever-present danger of  the war they would be returning to. She imagines watching the Purple Queen climb into the sky and the bright streak of her as she exits the atmosphere, too bright for her to stare at it. She imagines the silence of the Falcon as she continues to train with Luke Skywalker, the nearly silent Jedi master. She shakes her head.

“A war cannot be fought from a distance,” she tells him. “You know this. I will not send them alone back to this battle and I will not fight without them at my side. Maybe you can rest easy, knowing the people you love are facing death, but I cannot.” 

She stares him down, and he frowns and then looks away. Rey needs Luke Skywalker if they are going to win this war. But more than that, she thinks as she hears the laughing voices of the two men returning from their little ship, she needs to know that there is something worth fighting for.

**Author's Note:**

> "there is meaning as long as there is someone to need it": ASW 1129  
> "a fire without a spark": ASW 292  
> "everything seems like good news": ASW 329  
> "a lifetime pretending to be me": ASW 1010  
> "we carry our own loneliness with us": ASW 1172  
> "we are the first in years": ASW 423
> 
>  
> 
> This is two years of writing, and the longest thing I've ever written. I'm not what I would call a Star Wars fan. I apologize for everything in this fic that is wrong, Joss'd, or otherwise not in keeping with whatever is supposedly canon.  
> This is set directly after The Force Awakens and exists entirely to answer my most pressing questions:  
> where do stormtroopers come from, post-Clone Wars?  
> What happens in the space in between the super action/adventure space wizardry?  
> Does Luke suck as much as I think he does?  
> How can this Star Wars trilogy become the Queer Interracial Polyamorous Space Romance we all deserve?
> 
> Especially that last one.


End file.
